Down in the Dark
by FiggyPudding
Summary: An alternate storyline where Lisa Park is the software engineer sent to work for the Murkoff Corporation. As the only woman present during the Mount Massive Asylum emergency, her only goal is trying to escape in one piece. Things are complicated further by cruel bosses, a worrisome set of health symptoms, and a peculiar patient named Eddie Gluskin who promises to love her FOREVER.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

* * *

She knew what she had been getting into when she signed up, she thought. They'd needed a software engineer, and she needed the money. It was supposed to be a temporary thing; the usual going in to fix a few flaws in the system, get paid, and then go back to watching file servers in musty corporate basements. But it had turned out that not many programmers of her level wanted to work at the ill-reputed asylum in the middle of nowhere in Colorado, so they had renewed her contract…Several times now, actually, they had renewed her contract. And each time, she had been given increased wages and had been moved deeper into the facilities.  
Now she was Lisa Park: Contract Employee 1466, Clearance Level 3. And Clearance Level 3 had taken her deep, deep into Mount Massive's underground. She had signed a veritable mountain of paperwork and NDAs, scribbled her initials next to promises that she was not actually an agent of corporate espionage, and had even agreed to be moved, temporarily, to the dorm units in the subterranean chambers that apparently dug far into the earth beneath the asylum proper.

And it had gotten weird.

Airlocked gates at every turn. Armed guards. Shifty-eyed doctors. Morphogenic Engines. Shrieking madmen objecting to the tests aimed to aid their failing sanity. And other employees just like her, that lowered their gaze and went from one day to the next thinking of their families and their next paycheck.  
But they needed the paycheck. Waylon worked odd jobs on occasion, but nothing that really payed well, and he had always preferred to be a stay-at-home dad to take care of their two young boys. Lisa had always been the main breadwinner of the family, and she wasn't a stranger to a little adversity. Her family had always teased her about that. Waylon was tall and lanky, fair haired and blue-eyed, soft-spoken and nurturing and always a bit shy even during their wild days in college. Lisa was short with dark hair and dark eyes, aloof and logical and at times almost combative; unwilling to be intimidated despite her mostly male-dominated field.  
In fact, that was one of the first things she had noticed at Mount Massive, was the lack of other women. Not just programmers, but an utter lack of women at all. The female inmates had been moved to other facilities years ago, and there were no female nurses, no cafeteria workers, no secretaries, not even a customary chirpy-voiced receptionist at the front door. And the corporate bigwigs at Murkoff who oversaw the place had been very clear that as soon as her contract was over, she was out as well. They had been very oddly firm on that. Normally she would have chafed at such a thing; maybe confronted them with their own sexism, or presented them with a -more- than impressive resume of her skills compared to her coworkers. But if she was being honest, she wanted out of this place. She wanted to be back with Waylon and her family. She wanted to be away from the stares and mutterings of sex-starved men who had been kept too long from their wives, away from the inmates who spat profanities and threats when she passed by, away from the disturbing experiments and wailing of the poor wretches that Murkoff had been keeping here…  
It didn't help that her boss was an asshole. Jeremy Blaire turned up like a bad penny almost every time she ventured outside her lonely dorm room, asking her how she was feeling or telling her that she needed to fix the engine control's broken coding for the fourth time that week. Blaire's presence always set her ill at ease. He was never truly hostile and she had dealt with smarmy corporate jerks more than once in her career, but there was something strangely off-putting about this particular man; he was always watching her like a hawk, and she disliked how genuinely nervous it made her feel.

This time he hadn't even waited until she had shut the door to her room. One moment she had been about to close and lock it, the next there was a bony-knuckled hand decorated with expensive-looking rings holding it open as he leaned upon it just a little too nonchalantly.  
"Liiiii-saaaaa Park!" his voice rose and fell in a sing-song, just like it did every time he greeted her. "On your way out? You sleeping all right? Feeling well today? I know the mattresses aren't the best, but…hey, looks like you've making yourself at home all right!"  
Lisa glanced back to the carefully-made bed with its plain white sheets and dreary gray blankets. She had plastered the wall with pictures; photos of her and Waylon on their honeymoon, her kids posing with a zebra at the local zoo, formal family portraits with her children in adorable little sweaters, and pictures her sons had drawn that she had sniped from the kitchen fridge. Other than those photos, she considered the little room as unwelcoming as could be. She carefully managed her smile, trying to make it as cheerful but simultaneously impatient as she could. "Mr. Blaire. I was just heading to the-"  
"To the engine room, I'm afraid," he finished, still smiling in what she could have mistaken as an apologetic way, if she didn't know him better.  
"Again?"  
"Again. Camera connection, this time. And we're going to need you on that ASAP. If you'll just follow me…"  
She sighed and fell into step behind him obediently, busily trying to keep up with him as both hands worked to pin her hair up in her favorite no-nonsense bun. The engine had been breaking down more and more lately…and neither she nor the other engineers could figure out why. Snippets of code would vanish or be replaced with nonsense letters and numbers. Sometimes the screens would start flashing off and on at random. One time, a backlog documentation had shown up as HELPHELPHELPHELPHELPHELPHELP for pages and pages, which she had attributed to one of her coworkers trying to spook 'the new girl'. Just before she had gone to report it, the file had vanished.  
"That was your husband, yes? On your wall? Waylon, I think you said it was?" Blaire asked airily, pausing to swipe his card through one of the many locks.  
The door hissed open and she stepped through with him. "Hm? Ah, yes. Waylon. And my kids."  
"He looks…nice."  
"He is-nice."  
"You must be looking forward to seeing them again, yeah?"  
"I…yes…we were going to hold a birthday party for my youngest, he's turning-"  
"Mmmhmmmm, I think we'd better step a little more lightly. We already have the patient prepped and let's just say that there's going to be all kinds of hell to pay if we don't get him in the machine, again, ASAP."  
She paused in shock, then had to scramble back to her spot behind him. "You already have someone waiting?!"  
"Gluskin, I think. Yes, I think it's Gluskin up for this one. You ever read his file?"  
"I…didn't think I was supposed to read-"  
"Don't worry about it," he said briskly, cutting her off yet again. "Just, be aware Gluskin always puts up a damn fuss when it's his turn. So, he might be a little noisier than Billy or the others. I assure you the doctors have everything under control, we just need you to get the camera control program up and running and…heeeeeeere we go!"

The last door opened and Lisa pushed past him, moving to the familiar console at the front of the enormous glass viewing room. She had only ever been allowed on one or two of the consoles, out of the line of them, and any questions about the Morphogenic Engine's purpose or capabilities had been met with silence or outright hostility. The message had been clear. Keep your head down. Fix the code. Get your paycheck. Then, you can leave.  
She was dimly aware of Blaire lurking behind her again, watching her as she hunted through files and flagged errors. "Liiii-saaa Park, we're really going to need that camera up and running, one minute past now."  
"On it. Just need to update a few things and put in the ticket-"  
"Update _faster_."  
"But the documentation ticket-"  
"The ticket can wait. We need it going NOW. Ah, shit."

Blaire's usual smarmy exterior was starting to show cracks, and as she glanced up she saw why. The patient was already being led into the main room down below, flanked by two orderlies. She man was built like a brick shithouse, as the saying went. He must have stood nearly seven feet tall and did not have the withered physique she saw in most of the inmates, but was fairly rippling with muscle and sinew as he stood shivering in nothing but a pair of briefs, digging his heels in against the cold floors and putting up more than a valiant effort against his keepers. His thrashing nearly lifted both orderlies off the ground at once as they struggled to maintain control.  
He was bellowing in that bloodcurdling desperate tone that made Lisa's heart seize.  
"HELP! I knew it was coming. You filthy fucking machines! You fucking machines! No! No, not again. No! No! Jack booted fucks! I know what you've been doing to me! _I know what you've been doing_!"  
Blaire was looming over her again, speaking into the microphone. "Fuck's sake, get him under control!"  
Lisa tried to put her mind back to the task at hand, tidy red-painted nails tapping rapidly over the keyboard, even as her gaze kept drifting above the monitor to watch as the man…what was his name? Glaskin? Gluskin?…she watched as Gluskin was dragged, still kicking and shouting, over towards one of the strange glass spheres in the middle of the floor. The two orderlies were struggling to make him duck his head down when he managed to finally overpower one of them, flinging him roughly to the floor before turning to the other man…who promptly went flying across the room as the alarmingly strong patient flung him away with both hands.  
And just like that he was off, even with nowhere to go. The wretched man ran, finding nothing but closed doors and cold glass, his panicked and bloodshot eyes scanning the impassive figures within…and to Lisa's horror, his gaze flickered upon her and stayed there. His eyes settled on the dark haired woman and even as Blaire snarled threats and orders into the microphone just over her shoulder, Gluskin headed towards her.  
"Help! Help me! Help me, they're going to rape me! Rape! _Raaaape_!"  
He was up against the glass, pounding both fists against the barrier just in front of her, eyes wide with primal fear as he pleaded for her aid.  
"Help me! Don't let them do this! Don't let them! You! I know you can stop this! You have to help me! You have t-"  
The orderlies were up and back on him, wrenching him away from the window. Lisa instinctively recoiled, standing from her chair and starting to back away. A hand landed on her shoulder, and she flinched, turning to face to the smiling face of Jeremy Blaire.  
"Liiiii-saaaa Park! MISS Lisa Park, sit back down and get that camera running!"

She found herself guided rather roughly back to her seat, and she shakily turned her attentions back to the crawl of the update progress bar, trying not to watch as she heard Gluskin being forced into one of the glass pods. And as the timer counted down and Blaire's veneer nearly came apart behind her, the update bar finally ticked to a finish with milliseconds to spare. The monitor in front of her flashed as the camera connection was made, cutting to Gluskin's terrified visage, gagging around the tubes stuffed down his throat, eyes darting frantically as he moaned in pain.  
Blaire patted her on the shoulder as he finally released her, and she could practically feel his gaze boring into her. She swallowed thickly and then cleared her throat, calling upon every ounce of professionalism she had to keep her voice from cracking. "Mr. Blaire, the errors should be fixed now. I'll put in a ticket later when it's been checked. Will that be all?"  
She sounded overly formal and her frayed nerves were obvious, but Blaire seemed nothing but pleased, nodding to the door with a little jerk of the head to signal she could…and should…leave. "Yeah, yeah, good job, Miss Park! Looks like everything's up and running and we won't have my bosses barging down the door. You can head on back. Hey. Hey, good job, again."  
His pleasantries fell upon deaf ears. She must still have been in shock, a faint buzzing whine echoing in her skull, and the headache she had been nursing for several days returned in full force. She'd been able to stave off the stress of it all for the most part, but seeing that man, Gluskin…Seeing him like that had frazzled her. She grasped her forehead briefly, as though that would help stave off the piercing pangs of her headache, and Blaire paused abruptly.  
"Are you…feeling all right, _Miss_ Park?"  
Why was he always asking her that? She coughed lightly and folded her hands primly atop her skirt. "Ah…Yes, pardon. I'll be on my way back to my room…"  
"Not to worry, we have everything under control here, it looks like. You look a little peaked, Miss Park. Why don't you take a break and then get a quick glance over in the infirmary? Better safe than sorry, yeah?"  
She didn't really have a rebuttal, so she merely nodded and quietly backed out of the room, the doors slamming with an insulting bang as she made her exit. She scuttled back to her room quickly, swiping her employee card and cloistering herself back in the comforting familiarity of her little cell-sized domicile, placing one hand on the collection of pictures over her bed and pretending she could feel the warmth of Waylon's palm pressing back.

Jesus. What had she just witnessed? She'd never seen an experiment gone wrong like that…or…how many experiments had she even seen? How many men had she watched be forced, begging for mercy, into those pods that the doctors claimed would help them? Had they all been like this and she had just become numb to the horrors around her every day? What was happening here? What was she doing here? And what was that Gluskin man being put through even as she cowered in her Murkoff-supplied dorm room?  
She frowned, pursing her painted lips as she knelt and pulled her suitcase out from under her bed. She clicked it open, retrieving her laptop and tossing herself upon the covers as she set it upon her lap. Technically, she wasn't supposed to have personal computers here, but her increased security clearance had brought with it increased leniency, at least in that area. Technically, she also wasn't supposed to be routing around their firewall and connecting to the internet either. And technically, she wasn't supposed to have any contact with the outside world, even as she opened up the window to her email.  
She wasn't sure who she could even contact. There likely wasn't anyone in the company she could really trust. She might have tried to contact the police; unless the Murkoff owned the police as well, which wouldn't have surprised her. She didn't know if you even -could- email the FBI and be answered in a timely manner, and she didn't know anyone in the media who would take her seriously…  
Well, she did know -someone- in the media…even if he never did necessarily take her seriously either.  
Miles had gone to the same college as her and her husband. He had been a journalism student and she had rather briefly had a crush on him before she had met Waylon, but he had never really taken much notice of her. She couldn't even honestly consider him a 'friend' so much as a 'friendly acquaintance'. They had chatted idly a few times, had brought up going to get coffee together but never did, and the last time she had seen him was at random while at a software developer's conference years ago, where he had been bored out of his mind and apparently ill content with covering such small 'boring' stories.  
Well, did she have a story for him…  
She found his website easily enough, which included his bio. He still had that messy unkempt brown hair that he apparently hadn't bothered styling even for his profile picture, but his smile was wide and genuine, like a man who liked having his picture taken; very unlike Lisa herself, who apparently tended to look too 'severe' in her photos, or Waylon, who liked to look like a terrified deer in the headlights and usually managed to blink at the last second...  
Her headache pounded in her temples once more. Best not to think of Waylon right now.  
There was a list of publications that Miles had been a part of, Apparently, investigative journalism was still his thing. Perfect.  
She opened up her email and began typing.

-Dear Mr. Upshur…-


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

* * *

She'd spent the last half hour laying in bed after popping a few painkillers and playing soft music from her laptop. Eventually she decided to treat herself to a hot shower. It would have been a bath, but her little room's tiny bathroom barely had enough space to even turn around, much less lounge and relax. There may not have been any bubbles or rose petals, but she could at least take her time and waste a lot of hot water in the process.

Stripping down and neatly laying out her clothes on the foot of the bed, she padded carefully into the little bathroom and left the door ajar, humming along to her music as she turned the knob and glorious steaming water cascaded forth. She turned it up to 'just below 1st degree burns' and hopped inside, drawing the curtain with a rustle of plastic. The shower may not have fixed all the horrific realizations she had had in the past few hours, but it was as close to relaxation as she could get in this place. She rifled through her toiletries, slinging her wet hair back as she worked the suds through, lifting her voice as…what was her name? Annie Lennox, that was it…came on her playlist.

Waylon had always teased her for her singing. She really wasn't the singing type. She only ever sang in the shower and more than once her own sons had yelled a few 'Mommy, you're baaaaad!' scoldings through the door, which usually just made her sing louder at them, until they clamped their hands over their ears and went squealing back to their father. She knew she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket. But somehow it helped.

" _Sweet dreams are made of theeeese! Whoooo am I to diiiisaaagreeeee! I traveled the woooorld and the seven_ -"

There was a whooshing noise that sounded like her door opening. She stopped singing abruptly, listening. She swore for a moment she heard a voice, but it was hard to tell with Annie still belting it out. She quickly turned the knobs to the shower, the water sputtering before hissing to a stop. But she heard nothing but the drip of water and the refrain to her song continuing on. She peeked out from the shower curtain, groping blindly for her towel before wrapping it around herself and stepping out onto the mat. Outside, the music stopped playing. Lisa's eyes widened slightly, creeping forward towards the half-open bathroom door.

"Hello? Is someone out there?" she called.

The door abruptly swung open the rest of the way and a large hand shot forward, grasping onto her wrist. Startled, she shrieked in alarm and started to stumble backward, even as another hand gripped her by the shoulder and roughly dragged her out. It was a Murkoff guard, hauling her forward in front of him and wrenching her arm painfully behind her. She yelped again, wincing as she was turned to face the two other guards who were standing in her room…and Jeremy Blaire, who was calmly sitting on her bed and scrolling through her open laptop.

"Miss Park, I hate to be the one to have to tell you, but you've got shit taste in music," he chortled amiably. "Also sounded like you were dying in there in the shower, thought maybe someone had gotten to you before we could…Glad to see that's not the case."

Her lips drew thin in disapproval and she tried to pull her arm free from the guard behind her, but he merely dug his fingers harder into her damp skin. She clutched her towel tighter against her chest, mind racing as she turned back to face Blaire. "Mr. Blaire. I am asking that you leave immediately. Male employees are not allowed to enter female domicile unless there are strict-"

The guard shook her slightly to signal her silence. Blaire held up both hands mock-defensively. "Whoa! Sounds like someone's been studying their company rulebooks. Good to see you've been brushing up on your reading…and apparently, your writing…"

Her eyes darted. Blaire's smile widened as he shut the laptop and rose from her bed.

"For what it's worth, I was going to give you a _glowing_ recommendation. Model employee, up until now. And in a rough place like this? I thought you'd be out of here two months ago. But here we are, Miss Lisa Park. Well done, you, volunteering to stay on all this extra time…it's just a shame that you're going to miss out on your son's birthday party. In fact, you might be in here for such a long time, that you're going to miss a lot of things…"

Lisa squirmed in the grip of the guard, jaw tightening as she faced Blaire, spitting the worst threat she knew.

"I'm going to sue you."

Blaire's eyes widened slightly and the guards looked at each other with uncertainty. Lisa stared him down, dark eyes burning with barely-contained spite. She knew his type. Legal threats got their attention more than any raised fist could. Unfortunately, he was too quick to call her bluff. He chuckled darkly, rumbling somewhere deep in his chest before it turned into actual laughter. He shook his head, amusement written on his features as he stalked forward.

"Sue me? You're going to sue me, Miss Park?"

The guard shifted his grip on Lisa, holding both arms firmly against her side as Blaire inspected her. He seemed to finally be noting her state of undress, her delicate elbows jutting in awkwardly to hold her towel wrap in place, her hair a mass of dark wet tangles, and she was dripping steadily into a small puddle of water on the cold floor. If he looked closely, he could see she was shivering. He reached out and she leaned back, recoiling from his presence, even as he took hold of a thick lock of hair, rubbing the wet strands between his fingers. To her credit, she managed to maintain eye contact, but could not help her flinching.

"Don't touch me."

"No, no. You're already going to sue me, Miss Park…Suing me for damages, that's tough stuff. I like to think I'm a practical man. Should I make it worth it?"

His hand curled slightly, the pads of his fingers brushing against her shoulder. She pulled back as much as she could, but the guard still had her well under control, and unlike the patient who had been flinging orderlies left and right earlier that day, she did not have the same strength to fight back. He looked down at her, eyes half lidded as his touch went gliding across the thin wet skin of her graceful little collarbone. It was so thin and light, like a bird's bone, and just as easily snapped. He paused with his finger in the little divet just above her ribcage, inhaling slowly. He caught her gaze and held it, then glanced down as one finger hooked into the top of her towel and tugged downward.

She jammed her elbows further into her sides, but the damp cloth readily unfolded and fell loose, catching on her hips and hanging there. Lisa shuddered hard, her brows knitting and her teeth biting into her bottom lip. Blaire merely let his cruel gaze linger on her bared chest, reaching forward to trail the back of his digits along the top of one breast, sliding down to cup the mound of flesh…and even juddered two fingers back and forth to watch the soft mound of flesh jiggle crudely. There was nothing erotic about it. It was merely to embarrass the woman, a primitive display of who held the power here, as he stood above her with his hands on the more intimidate parts of her.

"Would you like to write something about this?" he asked, voice low.

One of the guards laughed behind him.

Lisa was focusing all her efforts on maintaining at least some veneer of self-control; but her shaking was no longer from the cold but a terrified full body tremble. Her breath was too light and too rapid, and when she swallowed there was a strange thick noise in her throat. The bastard in front of her was enjoying every second of it. He was even encouraged to draw closer to her, running his hands down her sides and starting to take hold of the wet towel draped precariously around her waist, smiling in a rather chilling manner when he paused abruptly, even seeming to do a double take as he turned his eyes back to her face.

"…Are you feeling well, Miss Park?"

She almost guffawed, almost went to pull free so she could hit him. But he genuinely seemed…not concerned, but almost puzzled. He reached up from her hips to her face, taking her wet head between both hands and gazing at her intently. She squinted one eye when his thumb moved to swipe across her face several times, finally rubbing the cleft of her lip just under her nose. When he drew back, she saw the tip of his digit was stained a faint red.

Was her nose bleeding?

She tried to pull one hand up but the guard shook her sternly to keep her in place. Blaire was no longer leching at her, but eying her in a far more calculated way that she instantly disliked. The guards, who been quite tolerant of the whole situation, seemed unsure as well. One pulled up his transceiver, muttering aside to his boss.

"Should I call it in?"

Blaire was still looking at her thoughtfully. "No," he finally answered. "No, not yet. Let's not make this more complicated than it already is…Huh. I'd read about this kind of thing happening, but I thought she was supposed to be out before any of it would take hold. Huh. Well I'll be damned."

Lisa could only look between them, fear and confusion roiling within her exposed chest. Things had taken a baffling turn, from intimidation and molestation, to some-thing- that even gave her captors pause. Whatever this was, it wasn't good. She wet her lips with her tongue, tasting the iron tang of her blood. "What…what is…"

"Well that puts a damper on things, doesn't it, Miss Park?" He shook his head, wiping his bloodied thumb on her bosom before stepping away. "Still, looks to just be a minor issue at the moment. You really should have stopped by the infirmary when I told you to…but it seems you don't really like following instructions as well as we'd like." He waved a hand dismissively, turning to pick up the laptop from her bed once more. "Listen, I've got a golf thing at 1. Take her to quarantine until we can decide what to do with her."

One of the guards had at least had the common human decency to shove one of her old nightshirts on over her head, just before she had been taken away. She had been hauled to another part of the employee facilities, to a tiny sick bay with a single glass observation room. It was even more sparse than her dorm, nothing but a single cot with a mat and no blankets, and a toilet. And when the guard holding her was done grabbing a handful of her ass, she was unceremoniously tossed inside, the door auto-locking behind her.

So she sat down on the cold plastic mat of her bed, hugged her knees up to her chest and folded her nightshirt up over them to try and stop shivering, and thought of her options. So she had brought down the wrath of Murkoff on her head. That, in itself, was pretty serious. She'd been an idiot to try and send that email. She didn't even know if it had gotten past their firewalls. It had really been a heat of the moment kind of thing, after hearing that Gluskin man beg her to save him. But he was just one patient among many mentally ill patients at Mount Massive. For all she knew, maybe Gluskin had killed people and the doctors really were trying to help him…

Maybe if she could just talk to Blaire again (God, the thought made her sick) to try and work out some sort of clemency. Pleading with the man who had just been groping her to prove some sort of point made the bile rise in her throat. But she was in no position except to appeal to his better side…if he had one, the scumbag.

And then there had been the headaches, and now the nosebleed…and Blaire had always been asking her how she felt from day 1 of this debacle. He knew something. Something was deeply wrong there, if it had gotten his attention even above her idle legal threats.

She waited, combing her hair with her fingers as best she could, and hoping that someone would come with a blanket and clothes and maybe some food for her.

And waited.

And waited…

Eventually she fell asleep, still curled in a ball on her mattress pad.

She awoke to an alarm going off out in the sick bay, startling her back to wakefulness so suddenly that she tried to spring to her feet, forgetting how her cramped knees were up inside her shirt, and gracelessly rolling right off the cot to land with a thud on her side. Finally loosening her legs from the cloth, she went and pressed her face to the glass. The alarm still blared and a red light was blinking in the ceiling outside her little room.

Was there a fire? She had studied the fire exit safety manuals before signing off on them but she didn't even know where she was, much less where the exits were. And if took an exit into a courtyard full of mental patients while being a woman wearing a skimpy nightshirt, well, she didn't really want to think about that. Likely, she just had to follow whoever would be coming in here to let her out.

Her brow knitted and she peered through the glass once more. Actually, would anyone be coming? Did anyone even know that she was in here? Blaire had just had a handful of guards stick her in here temporarily, and none of them had seemed particularly invested in her well-being.

"Hello! Hello, can anyone hear me? Is anybody out there?" She yelled aloud, banging one fist on the glass.

There was no sound but the muffled ringing outside the bay doors, red lights still spinning eerily overhead. She tried banging on the glass and doors once more, lifting her voice to a high-pitched shriek to see if it could be heard above the alarms, but the doors stayed shut.

Eventually the alarm turned itself off and though Lisa could have sworn she heard the bang of running footsteps and what sounded like muffled shouts, still nobody came in. She was left to pace warily back and forth at the window, staring out at the empty medical bay and silently praying that someone would find her in time.

It must have been hours later when she heard the whoosh of the the door and the silhouette of a figure stood in the entry.

Lisa rushed to the window, slapping her palms against it frantically.

"Hey! Hey, in here! Please, let me out! Something's happening, I have to get out of h-"

She drew back from the window as the figure started towards her, finally entering the light of the little sick room and pressing one hand against the smooth surface where hers had been. He wasn't wearing a guard uniform, or proper Murkoff-approved employee business attire, but the drab gray-brown jumpsuit of a Mount Massive asylum patient. The features on one side of his face seemed to have been almost burned, skin sloughing off and his eyesocket an empty mess of healed-over pink flesh, nothing left on his scalp except for a few scraggly tufts of hair, and he was smiling at her as best he could with a lopsided yellow-toothed grin that warped his ugly expression even further. His remaining eye peered in at her in seeming surprise, even as Lisa slowly backed away to press herself against the far wall.

"You're in here!" he said, "You're in here, I'm in here, and it's in me, so we're all in here!"

Lisa opted not to answer.

It winced at her silence, trailing its bony fingers along the glass as it sidled along the window. "Oh, but you can't…help me…while you're in there, so just…you should come out here. I need your help, will you help?"

The patient moved out of sight and Lisa heard the faint tapping of a computer, and a moment later the door to the quarantine area slid open. Hesitantly, she padded out into the main room, holding the edge of her nightshirt down warily with one hand as she faced the man, who merely turned back to her and offered that strange smile.

She cleared her throat. "I…need help as well. If we can just head towards one of the exits, I think we should get out of this place as soon as we can."

He nodded eagerly, guffawing a strangled little laugh and clapping his warped hands together. "Yes! Yes, I've been wanting to get out for ages! That's what I'm doing, but I need your help. Mmmmmmhere, take this." He turned and snatched a video camera from its stand that was standing in a corner nearby, flicking the switch and shoving it into the baffled woman's hands. "You know how to use this, right? I want you to help."

She half-raised it to point it at the half-faced Variant, still keeping both eyes on him. "You want me to record you?"

He nodded once more, then turned and reached towards a metal pan full of tools on one of the nearby counters, his grip closing around an alarmingly large scalpel and lifting it up. "Here, so you know how. I'm getting out, and then you can get out! Watch! Watch!"

Before Lisa could even register an attack, the scalpel was lifted high, only to be brought down in a violently sharp jab…the Variant slamming its razor-point into the meat of his throat with a sickening gurgle. She stumbled back, but the lunatic man lifted it again, stabbed again, over and over into the meat of his neck, fountaining red blood onto the linoleum. Even though the woman before him gasped and recoiled, still holding the video camera, he turned and smiled at her, his words a barely-audible wet gasp. "Now you know…how to do it…"

Lisa clamped a hand over her mouth. "No! No, stop! Don't-!"

He fell forward with a thud onto his face, wheezing noisily into the puddle of red before going still.

Lisa slowly lowered the video camera, flicking the switch to stop recording. She could be panicking, she supposed. Really, she felt like she should be panicking. But she really wasn't a woman who was good at panicking. It was a waste of time when you could be working on your to-do list…and getting out of this place was very, very high on her to-do list at the moment. Yes, it seemed that the patients had escaped and one of them had just killed himself in front of her, but well, if she was considering all odds, it was actually quite lucky that her first encounter with one had been one who wanted to kill himself instead of her.

She eyed the man on the floor suspiciously, even prodding at him with the toe on one foot. There was no response. Well, it seemed he'd made his own escape after all. It still left her in a bit of a bind as to how she was supposed to get out. So after a moment's deliberation, she rolled the man over and began carefully unzipping his jumpsuit, pulling it down and off him before pulling it on over her little nightshirt. It wasn't ideal. The suit was so much larger than her that she had to roll up both pants and sleeves, and it still hung baggy on her slight frame. It was also filthy and the front of it was stained in rapidly drying blood. He wore no socks nor shoes, and the bottoms of his feet were caked in grime and yet more blood that couldn't have been his. That did not bode well.

The patient had honestly been quite helpful. He had let her out, was er…'loaning' her his uniform, and given her the little video camera, which she had decided to keep. She would very likely need more than a little legal coverage if she was able to get out, and Lisa had a feeling that she could uncover more than just the last moments of one sick and desperate man. She'd already been in the belly of the Murkoff's beast, and if she chronicle even a little of the things that went on here, she would have more than enough ammo to bring some kind of divine punishment, especially to a certain someone who was living proof that Murkoff needed to be taken down.

She smiled a little, lips curling up on their edges at the idle thought of some very well-deserved vengeance. She was going to leave. And then, she was going to sue the _shit_ out of Jeremy Blaire.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3**

* * *

She had scavenged what she could from the little sick bay, but had found that she was unable to carry most of it. The biggest thing that she could realistically bring along was a rather small cloth First Aid bag. So she had stuffed it full of pain pills, bandages, scissors and a few other emergency essentials before flinging it across her shoulders and cautiously stepping over the body of the dead patient, peering out down the hallways.

Blood was everywhere; smeared on the walls, spattered on the ceiling, and pooled on the dirty linoleum, the prints of both shoes and bare feet leading in all directions. She chose to head in the direction with slightly less blood, lifting her camera and carefully recording the carnage. It seemed that quite a lot had happened since she had been locked away. There were bodies everywhere. Several patients had met a gruesome end at the hands of the Murkoff guards, but it seemed the defenders of the block had eventually been overrun, and the lunatics had not been kind. Lisa found their remains scattered in the unlikeliest of places; disemboweled in the toilet stalls, huddled beneath desks, half-dangling from an airduct, and she had even opened up a supply closet to find that someone had an entire collection of severed heads lined up neatly on the shelves next to the cleaning supplies with 'BLESS THIS MESS' smeared in blood above them.

She had self-consciously turned the camera off before looting some of the bodies. No need to show that part. She'd taken a hat from one of the severed heads and had found it almost suspiciously clean before balling her hair up and setting it on her head. She'd also found a pair of socks and shoes on another downed guard, so she wasn't running about in piles of gore. And with a paper mask that she'd found on a dead doctor, she hid her feminine features and it almost sort of tried to block out some of the smell. She must have looked ridiculous…a mish-mash of scavenged pieces from both sides, running around in a floppy jumpsuit and a pair of oversized shoes, wielding a camera.

She still wasn't even sure where she was, and kicked herself silently for not paying more attention to their route when she was being dragged around the asylum. Somewhere below the prison block, perhaps. If so, the place was likely crawling with inmates and it had been sheer luck they hadn't gotten to her beforehand. And it was only a matter of time before she ran into more.

Her progress was agonizingly slow. She tried desperately to make no noise, and winced every time her giant boots clunked against the floor or she had to move debris out of her way. Several times she had heard voices down the halls and had had to duck into supply closets or wedge herself under tables to avoid the wandering patients. But waiting around for them to pass meant she was wasting time, and the closest exit still might have been very far away.

"Patience. Cornerstones of enhanced interrogation, the endurance of the man asking questions, hhhhhr, not the subject. We'll have the truth. Maintain OPSEC, full black, scouting perimeter, isolate targets…hrhhhrr, someone's still here. Pigs out of the pen…"

Someone was mumbling up ahead, and judging by the footsteps, that someone was large. She flicked at her camera, eyes darting left and right before turning and scrambling into the nearest room. Another supply room, littered with shelves and lockers, most of which were locked. She grabbed several of them and jerked, the clanging noise seeming to echo louder than anything before she finally stumbled on one that was dented and half open. She flung it open, wedging herself inside next to a pile of books and a raincoat before slamming it shut again, pressing one hand over her mouth as she peered out of the slits in the lockeer door.

"I heard it. You're not done. You fuck. You messed up, heh, had your chance, hhhrr…"

The outer door creaked open and the monstrosity outside had to duck to even fit into the room. Lisa's eyes widened. Good god, this one made even Gluskin look miniscule in comparison. He must have been half as tall again and almost as wide, bulging with fat and muscle, his limbs wrapped with chains and his pudgy face mangled, speaking through a clenched jaw full of bloodied teeth where his lips and nose used to be. He hissed noisily, almost painfully, upon every inhale, rumbling and muttering to himself as he sniffed around the room.

"I smell you, little pig. Just come here, it won't hurt much, hhhr, get it over with, got work to do…little pig, _little pig_ …"

She cowered in place, even as she heard tables being moved and boxes flung aside, and the unmistakable noise of lockers being rattled. The gargantuan madman didn't even seem to care that half of them had been locked, metal crunching as he wrenched them open anyway. And it sounded like he was only several lockers away, now. She'd been careless, and now he'd found her.

She lifted both shaking hands into fists, facing the locker door. She didn't stand even a half of a chance against him, but perhaps she could at least get in one sharp jab before she died.

 _Oh god, Waylon. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry_ , she thought. _Tell the boys I loved them._

"LITTLE PIG! LITTLE PIG, **HERE YOU ARE**!"

There was a wailing scream from a locker nearby. Someone else had been trying to hide. Another patient was dragged out, scrawny limbs flailing as he beat uselessly at the giant man's meaty form.

"No! No no no no no! _Noooooo_!"

Lisa watched in shock as the man laughed and snorted, still huffing insults as he closed one hand over his victim's entire head…and with a sickening twist and crunch, the smaller man's screaming stopped, body flopping limply. The giant grumbled to himself, barely even glancing down at the decapitated form before tossing the skull aside and turned to lumber back out the door.

"Ghosts. Silver. Another one dead. Took too long, still others…hhhrrr, contamination everywhere, bleeding out, can't reach the town…"

Lisa waited for several long minutes after she heard silence, hoping he was really gone before she slowly creaked open the locker door. Her legs felt like jelly and she leaned heavily against the wall, trying not to look at the remains of the other patient whose stump of a neck was still fountaining red onto the concrete.

Her brain was shrieking at her again, agony lancing through her head as fear threatened to overtake her. Part of her wanted to get back in the locker and stay there, but she managed to make herself focus on that to-do list, swallowed down the panic yet again, and shakily opened up her emergency pack to swallow more pain pills. She coughed at the sour taste, choking them down without water. But the foul sensation at least helped to distract her mind, something else to focus on as she stepped over the body and skulked back down the hallway.

She'd managed to avoid most of the other patients so far, or at least the more aggressive ones. Most of them ignored her completely so long as she didn't get too close. A few gave her a side-eye at her guard hat and mask, but she usually fled before they could get too interested. They had their own problems, real or imagined. More than once she had lifted her camera from afar, subtly zooming in to record the inmates as they mumbled and cried, rocking and pacing about, or sat curled in on themselves in utter catatonia.

At times she truly felt pity for them. Then one of them would turn and attack another, or run by dragging a severed head still connected to its spinal cord, and she was reminded of the monsters she walked among. She had even wandered through the cafeteria, hoping to pilfer some food for her empty belly, but she was greeted by the most disgusting carnage she'd seen yet, presided over by a haggard looking man with a beard and a hacksaw. He had seen her opening the door but had merely scoffed and announced "Too skinny," before she managed to back out.

The sign that had welcomed her to the Recreation Ward had been covered in bloody handprints, and she had had to talk herself out of turning around and trying another way. But as she was making her way through, she noticed the place was strangely empty. The only patient she passed seemed more scared of her than she was of him, and seemed eager to be on his way out. That had been somewhat of a comfort at first, but she knew that likely meant that there was something bigger and scarier than them that had claimed this place. But there was nothing for it. And she was getting tired of running.

She ducked into an employee break room, finding several overturned file cabinets and a few ransacked vending machines. There were still a few bits and pieces at the very back where most of the larger arms couldn't reach, so she jammed the door with a chair as best she could and settled in to scarf down her peanut butter crackers and cola in relative peace, her eyes wandering to the mess of scattered papers and files strewn about the floor. They didn't make for fascinating reading; mostly just papers about supply orders for the inmates, new safety protocols, and the recreation therapies preferred by some of the patients. She tossed most of those aside until one name caught her eye.

Edward P. Gluskin…

Curious, she opened the file, eyes scanning its contents as realization and dawning horror spread across her features. It started innocently enough, mostly just Gluskin's talent at sewing and supervised textile therapy. But deeper in the file, there were notes about his other therapies; treating his psychosis and propensities for mutilating and killing numerous women. Photos of mattresses soaked in blood and chalk outlines on the floor. At the bottom of the folder there were papers about his interviews and his childhood, as well as a photograph of a young boy with a bruised face and teary eyes looking up at the camera as a larger pair of hands were-

She slammed the folder shut and threw it aside, closing her eyes to try and block it out, as if to prevent that from becoming a new memory. Everything was so fucked up. But that photograph was the most fucked up of all. Jesus, he'd been the same age as her own son… She clamped a hand to her mouth, pulling aside the medical mask as her gut churned, but the ravenous hunger in her stomach was too greedy to let her vomit. She swallowed down her bile and sat with her head in her hands, and stayed that way for a very long time.

Footsteps. Several people, down the hall.

Lisa's head jerked back upright from where she had almost dozed off, scrambling to her feet. _Shit. Shit shit shit!_ There was nowhere to go! There wasn't even enough room to try and wedge herself behind one of the machines, and the windows were shut and barred.

"Someone's in there."

"Heh! Heh heh, yeah, in there, not for long."

"Make it quick. We can't stay here, he'll hear."

There were several loud bangs, then the door's lock broke open and the chair screeched across the floor. The first patient shouldered his way in…and was immediately beaned by a coffee pot flying through the air, staggering back and rubbing his skull.

"Ow! What the fuck!"

He turned to face the threat, which seemed to be a very small scarecrow-like figure in a clearly stolen baggy Mount Massive onesie with its head and face covered, wielding a chair like a lion tamer.

"Oh you little piece of _shit_ , get him!"

Lisa found herself beset by three men at once, one of whom was carrying a broken off and sharpened piece of iron rebar. She lifted her chair and swung, trying to fend off the first one, but he managed to grab onto its legs and quickly wrestled it away from her. She pushed it at him the rest of the way, trying to use it as her chance to get to the door, but there was no chance of her barging through. A thick arm found its way across her stomach, shoving her away and to the ground. Her guard hat fell to the side, tangled hair falling free as she rolled onto her side, just in time to see the other patient lifting his makeshift metal spear above his head and drive it downwards. She tried to fling herself out of the way, but pain blossomed in her leg as the broken rebar pierced just above her ankle, skewering her clean through, severing muscle and tendon and scraping bone. The agony was white hot and unbearable, and Lisa threw her head back and screamed.

The scream was high-pitched and ragged and raw, its femininity unmistakable and for a moment, everyone in the room stopped and marveled.

"Holy shit! It's a girl! It's a _GIRL_!"

"I want her! She's mine!"

"Wait your fucking turn!"

"She's mine _now_!"

She was dimly aware of her nose bleeding again, though that was nothing compared to her leg. It was hard to focus above the pain, but she felt hands tearing at her jumpsuit, breaking the zipper and starting to rip it open as another grabbed a fistful of her hair, pulling the mask from her face. They were still shouting excitedly but their words all blended into an irritating high-pitched static whine. She was trying to fight back, albeit sluggishly, arms flailing and nails scratching, but more hands grabbed her shoulders and forced her back down.

Then the shouting took on a different tone. Violence and lust turned to fear, and the man who had just started to kneel over her was suddenly gone, scrambling out the door. She lifted her head, blurred gaze watching a large dark shape emerge from the shadows out in the hall, looming over even the tallest of her attackers. He was dressed in a white shirt and vest, a dapper bow-tie over his thick throat, and he lifted a very large knife and eagerly set upon the two men who remained.

Her eyes started to droop and she couldn't seem to rally herself, rolling onto her side and trying to crawl away, though the rebar still pinned her to the ground like a gruesome butterfly. The madmen were screaming and there was the soft wet noise of a blade against flesh, over and over and over again. Eventually the screaming stopped and the man in the bow-tie stood with his broad chest heaving wildly for several moments before turning down and peering at her. She waited for the knife to take her as well but it never came. Instead he turned and grasped the bar in her leg with one hand, grunting as he pulled it up and tossed it away. It hurt, she knew, but she was having trouble feeling it.

A pair of arms gently pried under her back and knees, lifting her up bridal style and she was pressed against the a chest that smelled like cologne and mothballs and fresh blood. He calmly turned and headed back out into the hall with her as her head lolled back, watching the circular lights pass by overhead as he carried her away, and the last thing she heard before blacking out was a deep and guttural purr in his throat.

"Oh, my _darling_ …"


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

* * *

" _Darling…Oh darling, you're almost back…"_

There was a voice.

" _Darling…sweet girl, angel…"_

The voice wouldn't leave her alone.

" _Come back to me…"_

On the brighter side of things, at least she hadn't died. She knew this because there was pain; a low dull throbbing pain that accompanied her awakening. It wasn't just her head this time, but an ache that encompassed her whole body, and a more vicious agony in her left leg…from the rebar. From those inmates that had attacked her, tried to rape her, and then there had been a man, and she had been taken away, and now she was pretty sure she was in a bed, and her mysterious benefactor was whispering pet names into her ear…

Lisa's eyes cracked open slowly, light filtering through her lashes as head shifted on the pillow. She managed a low noise, not even really a moan, and there was an answering exclamation from the man next to her.

"Oh, my darling, you're awake! I knew you wouldn't leave me again, not so soon after we were reunited! My brave, beautiful girl!"

She genuinely had no idea what he was talking about. She was still just trying to focus, and she turned to eye the man at her bedside. The poor wretch was clearly another afflicted patient, his face welted red with growths and lesions, the capillaries in both eyes had burst and tinted his sclera scarlet, which made the dilated blue stare all the more eerie. But he was cleanshaven and his hair was slicked back and oiled and his skin washed in at least some attempt to take care of himself. In fact, the more she stared at that face, the more it seemed familiar. She had seen it before. When she was down in the labs at Murkoff. That face had been there. It had been pressed against the glass, begging for help.

"…Gluskin?" her voice creaked softly, unsurely, but the man beamed at her anyway.

"Oh sweetheart, Mr. Gluskin was my father. Now, every good woman has proper manners, but please, Eddie will do."

She swallowed, the sides of her dry throat scraping together. She had been reading this man's patient file only a day earlier. Of course she would have been 'saved' from that group of lunatics only to fall into the hands of another lunatic, whose specialty was torturing and murdering women. Of course. Because this just kept getting better and better.

Groaning softly, she moved to sit up, and Eddie positively rushed to her aid, easing a hand under her back and ever so gently helping her upright. She seemed to be in some sort of strange makeshift living area. There were two single beds on either side of the room, complete with a duo of nightstands, file cabinets set up like dressers, and all the trappings of those strange 50s bedrooms she'd seen on late-night showings of _I Love Lucy_ , when a husband and wife sleeping in the same bed had been too scandalous for television.

She was still wearing the same nightshirt at least, but when she went to pull her legs up from under the blankets, she realized that both ankles were tied to the bedposts. That distressed her more than a little, and Eddie had to wrap both arms around her to stop her alarmed squirming when she tried pulling them free.

"No, no, darling, shhh. Don't be afraid. I had to. You kick in your sleep. Your leg is still hurt and we can't have you kicking it about and making it worse. But don't worry, I fixed it…but that's all I needed to do." He chuckled disconcertingly. "That's all I needed to fix. I almost didn't believe it myself at first, darling. But you came to me already perfect…not like all those other _whores_ with their _vulgarities_ and their _disgusting bodies and_ …" Rage choked the rest of his words and Lisa leaned back warily as his gaze turned dark. For a moment it seemed that a strange anger was about to overtake him, but he exhaled slowly and looked back at her with renewed adoration.

He took both her hands in his, pressing them together, almost binding them with his own as he leaned over her. "I knew you were perfect when I first saw you. Oh my love, I can't tell you how it chilled me to my very soul when I heard you screaming. And when I came for you, you were fighting those whores that were trying to take away your… _your purity_ …but you wouldn't let them! No, no, not my darling, you fought back. You were keeping yourself for me, even as they threatened your very chastity."

Lisa stared at him mutely. Eddie was clearly affected by this story he had woven about her attack. He gesticulated grandly as he spoke, and there were even little tears in his eyes at the more exciting bits, his voice hitching with emotion. He truly believed every word of it.

"Eddie…" she began, and the man perked up like a dog that had just heard its name. She chose her next words very, very carefully. "I'm…just glad you were there in time. But I should check if I can walk, and then you and I can go…"

The man's red eyes squinted. "Go? Go where, darling? Oh…I think, you're still a little confused, my dear. You don't need to worry anymore. You're safe. I'm here for you now, to protect you. Nobody will _ever_ hurt you again, do you understand? You're safe, because you're here with me. You're home."

This was a complicated situation. She worked with computers, not people. She was no psychologist, and certainly not qualified to be facing down with a misogynistic madman who was holding her captive for her own good. He clearly had a narrative and to deviate from that would make him angry. And she had read about what happened to the other women who made Eddie Gluskin angry.

She managed a watery smile, forcing an apology. "Ah. I'm sorry, Eddie. Yes, you're right, I must have just been confused."

His smile lit up with approval, his enormous arms wrapping around her once more to draw her into his embrace. Lisa was just glad he wasn't facing her, wincing openly as she heard him _sniff_ her, fingers clenching into her hair as he sighed dramatically. "There there, darling. You've been through so much to get here. You don't need to be afraid anymore. No, no, you don't need to do anything except rest and heal. We don't want your leg getting any worse, do we? After all, you have to be able to walk before we can walk down the aisle, hmmmm!"

The color drained from her face and she started to try and pull away, but Eddie's grip around her was like a vice. "You…You want to get…"

"I know, darling, it's hard to find words for my excitement as well! I've been getting everything ready while you were sleeping. I have the flowers, the cake, and the most wonderful girl in the world as my fiance. I just have to put the finishing touches on your dress and a few other…bits and pieces."

"…married."

"Not to worry, I already took your measurements. You were asleep for so long, I had plenty of time to make you other dresses. I had to cut you out of that awful suit you were wearing so I could wrap your leg. But when I did, I could truly look at you. All of you. God, you're beautiful. You're perfect. You look like an angel when you're asleep, my love, and you feel just as heavenly…" One of his hands wandered, his gloved palm pressing against the blankets into the curve of her inner thigh and slowly stroking upwards. "I can't wait to feel you truly, once we're married. When you're warm and ready for my seed, to start our family together, when I-"

"Eddie!" she protested, pressing both hands to his broad chest and shoving back with all her might. The muscular patient didn't even budge, merely laughed as he took it as a playful chastisement.

"No, no, you're right, my sweet. Eddie, you big goofus! I can't get ahead of myself so soon before we're wedded!" He pulled away from her, rummaging through the drawers next to her bed. "I'd best get back to work before you tempt me anymore, you _minx_. Here, you should have everything you need. Your pills, water, and I've been saving this chocolate for when you woke up. You just try to take it easy and I-" he stood, moving over to his desk and picking up that enormous knife once more. "I need to make sure everything is safe for you and our children."

That darkness was back in his eerie red and blue eyes, and Lisa half-crouched silently in her bed and watched him leave, the key clicking ominously in the lock and she was finally alone once more.

Immediately she yanked the covers down, scooting down on the bed to untie the strips of cloth that held her ankles. Her wounded leg was still throbbing and painful as she undid the crude bandages Eddie had wrapped around her. The rebar had pierced through her leg, two ragged round holes on either side and no small amount of ugly red and pink mess inside, shimmering in yellow pus. She reached for her emergency bag, pulling out her peroxide and carefully spilling it into the wounds, flushing out the goop. It burned terribly, and god only knew where the inmate had gotten that rusty rebar in the first place. That was another thing for her to-do list, it seemed; Escape. Sue Jeremy Blaire. Get like, thirty tetanus shots.

She unrolled another round of clean bandages and began to redress her wound, swallowing down a few more pain pills as she did, and guzzling the water bottle dry in several deep gulps. Her leg was a concern, to be sure, but Eddie Gluskin marrying her was entirely another. It had only been dumb luck that no jewelry was allowed and she had had to remove her wedding ring. He might have killed her then and there if he had known. She doubted he would react kindly if he suspected her of being with another man, much less being the mother of two boys that weren't his.

Eddie had one bad case of baby rabies. At least she and Waylon had waited a few months before deciding to try…

 _How am I even going to explain this to Waylon?_ she thought. _Sorry, honey, I married a serial killer just to stay alive?_

But in the end, what choice did she have? If she wanted any sort of chance at getting out alive, she would have to play along to Eddie's whims until she could make a real break for it. There were pros and cons to that plan. But that was it. That was the plan; the _only_ plan.

She swung her bandaged leg over and down to the floor, very cautiously testing her weight on it. There was no way she was going to outrun Gluskin on that leg. She could barely even hop on it, limping heavily as she explored the temporary 'home' he had made for them. Not that there was much to see. The windows were filthy and the bars on them were so old and heavy that not even a dozen Eddies could have moved them. The door was solid metal and only her new fiance held the key. She did find a surprisingly hearty stash of food in a closet, at least, and stacks of bottled water, which she helped herself to. And in the chest of drawers were the dresses he had mentioned; an entire collection of them.

She had to give props to the madman. They were lovely dresses, almost costume-like, in the 50s housewife style with swishy skirts and even a few ruffled aprons that he'd made from the ward's straitjackets. And he'd even made her a stitched-together pair of women's panties…which fit eerily well and snug on her hips. He really had been _precise_ on those measurements while he had been groping her unconscious body. Ugh. She tried to put that out of her mind, just grateful she even _had_ underwear as pulled on a green dress with poofy sleeves and an apron. It wouldn't be much good for running, with all that easily-grabbed fabric, but at least they fit her.

Even that brief exploration exhausted her and she limped back to her bed, sprawling out on it and staring blankly at the ceiling until she fell asleep again.

She was startled awake a bit later as the keys rattled against the doors and they swung open, Eddie striding in with the most stereotypically cheerful " _Honey! I'm home!_ " she had ever heard. She had almost laughed aloud but managed to turn it into a cough as she rolled over to sit up. His eyes lit up when he saw her, and it almost broke her heart how genuine his adoration seemed. If she didn't know the truth about him being a mass-murdering lunatic whose temper could change on a dime, it would have almost been charming.

"Oh darling, you chose the green one! I…would have liked the red on you better…"

"I…oh…" She stared at him, her false smile slipping a bit. Well, so much for feeling sympathy for him.

"But!" he continued on. "You look marvelous in anything! And I hope you had a good rest, because I really do need to do a dress-fitting with you to make sure everything is perfect."

"Another dress? Eddie, you already have a whole drawer here full of-"

"Ha ha! Ha! You silly girl, not those dresses. No, no, darling, I need to fit your wedding dress."

She couldn't think of anything to say, uttering a strangely-pitched, " _OooooOOOOooohhhhh…_ " that she hoped sounded like she was impressed.

He strode over to her, adjusting his bow-tie and taking her hand to pull her up gently, just so he could crush her to his chest once more, rubbing slowly up and down her arms and burying his face in her hair. "Just a few finishing touches, making sure it fits you, hugs _every curve_ , yes. Everything's already set up, just like I said. You don't need to worry about a thing. After the ceremony this evening, you'll finally be Mrs. Gluskin. And then, after our wedding…" he leaned down and pressed his soft, too-moist lips to the top of her ear. "Then we can have our wedding night…"

She squeaked, blood turning to ice as all the color drained from her face. "Tonight?"

"Oh yes, darling, we'll be married soon. And then, we'll be together _forever_."


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter 5**

* * *

She had to make it seem like she was excited. Because if Lisa wasn't excited, that would mean that she didn't want to marry Eddie. And that wouldn't fit into the role he had for her, in whatever messed-up play was going on inside that brain of his. And if she couldn't play the part, he would kill her. His wedding had to be perfect, and that meant she had to be perfect. No pressure.

 _Eddie Gluskin; the ultimate Bridezilla._

He leaned down and scooped her up effortlessly, tucking her skirts in around her legs as he turned and carried her from their little room. He really was dreadfully strong, shifting her entire weight to one arm as he awkwardly locked the door, though she wrapped her arms around his neck to keep herself steady. It also encouraged him to smile down at her in that infuriatingly patronizing way. "Don't worry, darling. You're as light as a feather, just like you should be. I guess I should enjoy this while it lasts, hmm! Soon you'll be eating for two! Oh sweetheart, don't pout, you know you'll always be beautiful to me."

"You…say the nicest things, Eddie," she said. Eddie no doubt had an outdated view of pregnancy where the woman had a 'healthy glow' and an occasional craving for pickles or some such. Her last pregnancy had been much less romantic, when her youngest son had soccer-kicked her bladder for six months straight and more than once Waylon had walked in on her crying in front of the TV, her swollen ankles up on a kitchen stool and an entire empty box of ice cream bars on the sofa next to her.

He carried her through the filthy halls of the Vocational Block, and Lisa watched their travel route keenly. The amount of locked doors was disconcerting, but she was already picking out hiding spots and possible exit routes as they walked, counting the turns they made and what rooms they passed. The whole block was devoid of other patients, but that was not surprising. Eddie seemed to spend a lot of time patrolling his territory, and she didn't like to think of what happened when he actually caught someone. Occasionally she thought she heard soft murmuring from up above, as though several people were talking to each other, but Eddie seemed unconcerned. No doubt it was her imagination.

She was deposited in a hall filled with sewing machines and mannequins, most of which were draped with half-finished dresses, and an occasional decapitated man's head speared on top. Lisa tried not to look at those, nor the disgusting floor which she now had to walk bare-footed since Eddie had taken her boots. He gently sat her down and kissed the top of her head, leading her over to a mannequin in the corner. It was wearing a wedding dress of clean white fabric (curtains, it looked like) with old-fashioned wide skirts and straps that draped low on the shoulder, complete with a veil laying on the table nearby. Eddie was nearly giddy, rubbing his gloved hands together and smiling so widely it nearly cracked the scars on his face.

"What do you think, darling?"

"It's a beautiful dress, Eddie," she said, and this time it wasn't a lie. It was frankly amazing that the madman had been able to make such a dress in a place like this. He could have easily outclassed any dress designer she had ever hired. If only it weren't for the whole…serial killer…thing.

"It's going to look even better on you. Try it on and then I'll help you with the adjustments. All right, you just let me know when you're ready for me to look. I promise I won't peek!"

He turned and made a show of covering his eyes with both hands. Lisa gave him a disgusted frown while she could, before unbuttoning her green dress and tossing it onto the table. She was careful as she lifted the wedding gown from the mannequin. God knows what Eddie would do to her if she ripped it. Pulling it on over her head, she adjusted her bosom with a little hitch and shuffle before pulling on the veil.

"Okay, it's on."

"Are you sure it's on all the way? You're not going to tempt me are you, you minx? I'm going to turn around!"

"N-no, everything is on."

"You're going to be beautiful." He uncovered his eyes and went to face her, and somehow his smile got even wider. "Oh, darling, do a twirl for me."

She did, lifting her skirts and spinning in an awkward little circle.

When she turned back around, she expected to see his scarred visage still grinning at her, but he was looking somewhere off to the side, shoulders slightly hunched and hackles raised. The doofy smile was placed by bared teeth and furrowed brows.

" _DON'T. DON'T YOU DARE FUCKING LOOK AT HER_."

"Eddie?!"

" _SHE'S NOT READY YET_."

He stormed forward like a raging bull, one enormous fist swinging at an unclothed mannequin that was standing silently nearby, a man's deformed head speared atop it, sunken eyes going in two different directions. The dress dummy crashed to the ground and rolled slightly from side to side, but was stilled as Eddie's enormous foot slammed down on top of it, breaking through fabric and wire and even denting the metal frame inside. He merely drew his foot back and up once more, bringing it down on top of the head. There was a sickening crack, then another and another as Eddie stomped and raged, the dead man's skull finally collapsing in on itself as messy red fluid mixed with half-melted pink brain and chunks of hair sloughed out onto the floor.

"Fucking _whore_! Your _filthy_ little eyes! You only _wish_ you could have been her!"

Eddie stood breathing heavily over the mess, rage emanating from his stance. Lisa stood frozen, watching as her mad fiance eyed the gruesome remains of his twice-murdered victim. And apparently satisfied that the perpetrator would no longer be of any trouble, he turned away, smoothing his mussed hair away from his face and smiling once more. Out of sight and out of mind, the head oozed in plain sight behind him, but he acted as though nothing had happened. "…Darling? No, don't fret. It's nothing…Oh darling, no, I didn't mean to frighten you. Oh my poor girl, it's nothing to worry over, here."

He approached his bride-to-be, arms wrapping around her shoulders and squeezing gently as he comforted her. Lisa was silent and compliant, more shellshocked than anything and half expecting to be snapped in half if Eddie was still worked up. She was starting to doubt her survival odds, thin as they had been before. He had just thoroughly killed a mannequin. His tantrums would be impossible to predict. Her eldest son had always been prone to temper tantrums, much to her dismay, but over the years she had learned to navigate his little episodes with distractions, tricks, and diplomacy. But the crying fits over the chocolate bars at the grocery store checkout lines seemed like a walk in the park compared to Gluskin. These temper tantrums had hundreds of pounds of primal sexually-frustrated muscle and rage behind them.

She decided to try distraction. "Eddie…could you check my neckline for me? I can't see the back."

The cheerful side of Eddie was back again. "Mmm of course, my dear! In fact, I need to check the whole dress. Oh, looks like I might have to draw the skirt up just a bit so it won't drag! Just a few adjustments…"

Lisa held her arms up and tried to remain still as Eddie fussed and muttered to himself over the dress-fitting. Her nerves fluttered a little every time she felt a pin push through the fabric, even though he was careful never to prick her. And even though her arms got tired and she was cramping from standing still, she remained near statuesque the whole time, giggling on cue or agreeing with whatever he was yammering on about with dress measurements and styles. Eddie even praised her for when they were done, rubbing his thick thumbs against her stiff shoulders and calling her a good girl.

She was glad when it was over, when the dress was back on its frame and Eddie was carrying her back through the halls. She tried counting the turns again, but was surprised when they didn't seem to match up. They weren't going back to the room.

"Eddie? Are we going somewhere?"

"I have to finish up with the dress and the preparations…and you still have some preparing to do yourself, my dear! I'm afraid the razors and soaps here are not the best but…oh goodness, how to put this?…You're starting to look a little un-womanly, and you need to look your very best for our wedding ceremony."

"They let you have razors here?"

"The orderlies had them. If you were good, you got to let them shave you. They did terrible jobs of it too, I'm surprised they didn't scar my face!" He ran a hand along the gruesome red welts along his chin. Lisa, yet again, opted for silence. "They're cheap disposable things, darling, nothing like what you deserve. But I found a few bags of them, and I still have quite a few left. I left one in the shower for you."

"A few left? Eddie, have you been… _shaving_ people?"

His brow furrowed just slightly, and she caught the hint of a frown around the edge of his mouth. She must not have been supposed to question him on that, bizarre as it was. "Sweetheart, can I _trust_ you? If I leave you here to get cleaned up? I still have so much to do and I'd hate for anything to be late. You won't do anything silly?" He set her down in front of the door to the communal bathrooms, kissing the back of her neck as he sought reassurance. "I'll lock the doors so you'll be safe. Just promise me you'll be good."

She hesitantly lifted a hand and pressed it over his much larger one, squeezing his fingers. "My leg hurts still, Eddie. A lot. I'll just shower and make sure I'm presentable for the…the wedding."

"That's my darling! Give me a kiss before I go."

He leaned down, lips puckered, and Lisa made herself purse her own lips before going to kiss him as briefly as she could, covering it up with a playful 'Mwah!' and loud smooching noise. That seemed to make him happy, and he winked at her before the heavy metal door clanged shut and locked behind her.

The showers were beyond disgusting. Two of the stalls had bodies in them and it looked like someone, maybe even Eddie, had tried physically mushing them into a shower drain. It had not worked very well. Lisa covered her nose from the stench and moved to the stall furthest from the door. True to his word, Eddie had left a sad little disposable one-bladed razor laying on the metal bench there. Perhaps this wouldn't be so bad. She needed a shower anyway. Anything to help wash the filth off.

The mirrors above the sinks weren't true mirrors, but merely heavily shined panels of metal. The reflection wasn't perfect, but she couldn't help but stop and stare at herself. She looked like an utter stranger. Never had she been in such a state and it felt like she was looking at an entirely different person. Her hair was knotted and bunched to one side and her face was cut and bruised, her lip puffy and split, her right eye blackened and slightly swollen. Her other eye was baggy and haggard and both were red-rimmed and teary and tired. She looked like she had aged ten years in the span of a few days. The worst thing was that she couldn't even blame all of it on Eddie. Most of her wounds had been from before he had 'rescued' her. She would have been looking a lot worse, or been a lot more dead, if he hadn't found her when he did. Even if he had locked her in a shower and had gotten a little threatening about the shaving.

Stripping off her dress and limping into the stall, she turned the knobs to the showerhead, and was greeted with a spray of ice-cold water, shrieking aloud as she covered herself and fled from the freezing stream. No matter how much she fiddled with it, she couldn't get the water to heat up at all. Likely whatever archaic boilers they still used to heat the water for the asylum had turned off, or broken, or who the hell knew or cared. She cursed aloud and resigned herself to one extremely cold shower, ducking in and out of the spray as she washed her hair and her wounded leg.

The shaving was a bit more difficult. She only had one working leg and the razor was nearly useless, and gummed up with soap before she could even complete one stroke. She carefully shaved her hurt limb, being extra careful around the ragged wound, but was forced to use the bench to shave the other. She would sit down, shave half a stroke, lean as far as she could to try and let the spray rinse out the razor, then repeat. Then it was back to weaving in and out of the icy water to shave everything else. Shaving between her legs was the most difficult of all. There was something terribly ominous about it, preparing herself for something she knew was going to be so horrible. He wanted her bare, silky and smooth and soft all over.

 _Like a little girl again._

"Darling! I'm back, are you in there? Are you decent? Oh, I almost want you to say no, you minx."

"Oh…ah, ha! Oh Eddie, not before the wedding!"

The shower had washed away most of the blood and grime, but she wasn't feeling much better. The pain pills seemed to have diminishing returns, and her head was hurting again. This time it was accompanied by a terrible wrenching pain in her gut, her insides cramping, but she tried to blame that on the stress of being held captive by a madman and being fed nothing but sugar and starch. Still, she moaned a little as Eddie carried her through the halls. The buzzing feeling was back inside her temples, drilling and boring inside her skull, while the same feeling was trying to break its way out of her insides, deep in her gut just below her stomach. Everything hurt, and this time the pain was faster, more vicious, until it was positively debilitating.

"Way…Way, are we going? Which Way?"

"Angel? Are you feeling well? I know you might be getting a case of the butterflies before the ceremony, but I need you to be a strong girl for me. I've waited all my life for the right one to finally be Mrs. Gluskin. I've been waiting for you, don't you know?"

"I'm sorry, babe, I don't go…"

"What do you mean, darling? Darling?"

He looked down at her and found her eyes rolled back into her head, blood streaming from her nose and staining the collar of the green dress. He was just about to chide her for getting her dress dirty when he heard a noise.

There was a rattling sound from overhead, and he looked up to see the air vent shake, four screws twisting rapidly and then plinking to the ground, followed by the crash of the metal grate. Something was coming from the vents, only visible if he squinted. It looked like mist or steam, but it was far too dark to be water vapor. It looked almost like smoke, but…wrong. It was moving strangely, almost tendrils. Like a swarm of birds or insects that clumped together and broke away again, breaking and solidifying, almost breathing. It was something _living_.

The mist paused, pulsating in the air as it gathered together, and then it all turned at once. It had noticed them. It was looking at her.

Eddie grasped the woman to his chest, taking a step back. "No! She's mine! She's MINE! I found her, I _finally_ found her!"

He turned and ran. His darling's limbs flopped pathetically in his arms and despite how wonderful and light she was, her weight made running difficult. He ran until his breath burned in his chest and he dared not looking back, not even with the sibilant hissing noise at his heels as he slammed doors and vaulted over downed tables and broken shelves. He ran even when he couldn't hear it anymore, until he finally reached the safety of their home. By then, even his true love weighed him down like a ton of bricks, and he couldn't even set her down as gently as he would have liked, practically tossing her onto her bed as he turned to face the door, grasping his knife.

It had given up. Or lost interest. Or had made some decision in its otherworldly mind and gone off to do that instead. It was still a long while before Eddie felt safe enough to lower his blade. His girl was still peacefully asleep, though she had rudely allowed her nose to bleed all over her blanket. Not to mention the ruined dress…He would scold her later, perhaps use it as a chance to teach her about proper laundering. But he couldn't help but smile when she moved a little in her slumber, moaned as her fingers curled into claws in her soft belly.

Ah! No doubt she was just as excited as he, dreaming about the baby he would put into her. She really was perfect, and there was no way he was letting anyone else, or any _thing_ else, take her.

He decided to let her rest just a bit longer. Soon it would be time to wake her up for the ceremony.

Then he could finally _have_ her, and make sure that all her dreams came true.


	6. Chapter 6

**Note:** There is unpleasantness ahead in Chapter 6

 **Chapter 6**

* * *

A pair of feverishly hot, rough lips were being pressed to her forehead. She scrunched her face, then peeked one eye open only to see a pair of bright bright blue eyes surrounded by broken blood vessels staring into hers, on a familiar mangled visage covered with sores and lesions. She hunched down into her bed, gasping sharply.

Eddie leered a smile down at her. "Oh! I'm sorry, sweetheart, I didn't want to startle you. But it's time to get up."

She pulled herself up from the bed but found her face sticky, lifting the back of one hand to scrub away the dried blood on her lips and chin. She remembered being carried by Eddie and then waves of mind-numbing pain, her guts being clenched like a fist, and then some foggy half-formed dreams about a blackness chasing them and being jostled to and fro as they ran. She must have passed out, or something close to it. Her pillow was soaked with blood and her stomach was still in knots. Whatever it was that was affecting her, it was getting worse.

She needed to get out.

The only problem being that her captor very much wanted her to stay. Eddie was humming cheerfully as he moved across their little room, grasping one of the posts of his bed and then pulling, dragging it towards her with a scraping screech across the floor. Lisa gave him a wary look as she realized what he was doing. He was joining their bedframes together, shoving another empty mattress on there to allow them more room. He was making their marriage bed.

"Do you want the spot by the wall, darling? Would that make you feel safer? Or, mmmmm, you might need to be closer to the bathrooms because of the baby…"

She disliked the thought of having to try and climb over Eddie if she wanted to make an escape. "Oh, I think…yes, I'd better be on the outside. Because of the baby. Yes, thank you Eddie."

His massive arms were around her again, pulling her close against his broad chest as he pressed more kisses to her neck. Lisa stared straight ahead, unmoving as he nuzzled her hair aside with his nose, burying his face against her throat and sighing contentedly. "Just think, my love. It's finally here. The day we've been dreaming of for so long, it's really happening."

"It's, er- it's hard to believe."

"I love you so much, darling."

"I…love you too, Eddie."

* * *

He had helped put the wedding dress on her again, groomed her hair, and told the ragged-looking woman with the black eye and bruised frown that she was beautiful, that it was hard to even put the veil on her for fear of covering up her loveliness. Lisa was glad for the veil. She couldn't seem to muster up the effort to seem excited no matter how hard she tried, but luckily Eddie's dogged enthusiasm and tunnel-vision about the whole affair distracted him from noticing.

He picked her up once more and carried her through the halls, humming cheerfully, and out into a courtyard with a grown-over fountain and a smaller outbuilding that she supposed was to serve as their chapel. She finally looked up slightly, breathing in the fresh air of the outside world and catching the glimpse of the burning orange sun as it slowly began to lower between the buildings, but then they were inside the chapel and the doors shut once more, and the smell of rotten wood and blood and death returned to fog her senses.

The 'church' had been decorated in some sense of the word. Curtains were draped from the beams and toilet paper could almost be seen as party streamers, and Eddie had posed several dead bodies in the chairs to act as their congregation. He had even made her a bridesmaid of sorts, or at least strung up a dead inmate he'd shoved into a dress.

"Are you ready, darling? Here we go…"

Her groom was so beside himself that he had little tears in the corners of his eyes, placing a bouquet in her hands made out of spindly clover flowers, dandelion weeds, and construction paper. He set her down, then strode forward to the set of steps that would act as their altar, holding out one hand to motion her to join him. Lisa limped forward painfully down the aisle, trying to pretend that she was in a real church, getting real married, with a real Waylon waiting for her up ahead.

She kept her head down so the veil hid her expression, noticing that her missing video camera had been set up on the little altar stand. Eddie must have found it and had decided to record this miserable event for safekeeping.

Eddie took her arm to help her up the step and ushered her gently in front of him, wiping a tear from his infected eye before gripping her hands tightly. "Darling, I know that this might seem overwhelming. I know it is for me. I can't even put into words how happy you've made me. It was love at first sight. I knew you were the one, and our time together has been nothing less than magical. I can't wait to spend the rest of our lives together."

He blinked down at her, waiting for her to say something. Lisa's tongue felt thick and foreign in her mouth, and she licked her lips behind the veil several times before answering, her voice a little shrill before she managed to get it under control.

"Ohhh uhh, I em…I'm s-so happy. To be here with -and you just. You make me happy. You saved me and took care of me and you- you love me…"

"Yes, darling! Yes, I love you so much! Do you, darling, take me, Edward Gluskin, to be your happily wedded husband? To have and to hold, to cherish, until death do us part?"

"I…do…?"

"And I, Edward Gluskin, take you-"

His eyes drifted apart a little and he paused awkwardly, and Lisa suddenly realized he didn't even know her name. He had never asked her, just called her a multitude of pet names and never bothered with anything else. At a loss, she supplied it to him.

"It's Lisa. Lisa Park."

"Well, now you're Mrs. Lisa Gluskin, because I want you to be my happily wedded wife. Oh and I will hold you, darling, and cherish you, and take care of you, forgive you, teach you, and love you, forever, until death does us part. And now…I certainly may kiss my bride!"

He grasped her around her waist, brushing back her veil with one thick gloved hand as he dipped her dramatically and kissed her, mouth moving warmly against hers as he cradled her head and kissed her deep and held it there, never noticing a thin stream of water that squeezed from her shut eyes and trickled down her cheeks.

Finally he released her and helped her upright, and even gave a goofy little wave to the 'congregation'. "Darling, time for the bouquet toss!"

She quickly wiped her cheek. "What? I-oh, right."

She turned and gave a half-assed limp little throw, the paper bouquet spinning through the air. Somehow, against all odds, it was actually caught. It landed in the lap of a dead man, who was tied to his chair with ropes, his broken neck lolling to one side and his mouth open wide. It almost looked like he was cheering. He had just won the bridal toss in this godforsaken farce of a ceremony.

Lisa couldn't help herself, she began laughing, giggling under her breath. At everything. It was a thin, reedy little laugh, an alarmingly close-to-mental-breakage kind of laugh, that squealed out of her throat like a breaking balloon. It even seemed to startle her new husband, who turned to eye her suspiciously as he grabbed the camera before picking her back up.

"Darling, are you feeling all right? Mmm, just a little _overwhelmed_ with emotion, aren't you? Ah, women."

"I'mmm j-jusssst sssooo ha-app-yyyyyy," she managed between gritted teeth, tears starting to leak down her face once more.

Just before they left the little chapel room, Lisa caught a glimpse of the wedding cake that Eddie had mentioned. It was a rock-hard sheetcake that had probably been in an employee fridge for several weeks as leftovers, several slices already taken out of the side and reading HAPPY BIRTHDAY STEVE in squiggly blue icing on top.

And Lisa laughed again.

* * *

She counted the steps that brought them back to their makeshift home, listening to the ominous thud of Gluskin's shoes against the ground. The keys rattled, the door open and shut and locked, and he gently set her down like a doll on the edge of their newly-joined marriage bed.

"Mrs. Gluskin…Mr. And Mrs. Gluskin. Oh, darling, we're so happy. And now we can finally be together as man and wife."

She sat quietly as he pulled away her veil, cupping her chin and turning her face to kiss her again, the entire bed creaking under his weight as he sat down next to her.

"I know that you've never been with a man before, my love. So you might not know that the conception of a child can be…painful. In some ways."

Lisa nodded obediently, disliking how much he seemed to relish the word 'painful'.

Eddie guided her in front of him, holding up her hair and starting to unzip the back of her wedding dress. "What I'm going to have to do to you might hurt you. But you have to remember that sometimes it's a wife's duty to hurt. I'll try to make it quick. Now…let's get you ready."

He parted the wedding dress and pulled it slowly until it rested around her hips. Lisa inhaled deeply and mentally steeled herself for her performance. If he didn't feel she was worth his time as a 'wife', her life would be forfeit that much sooner. So she searched every memory she could find about the old Nick-at-Nite TV she used to watch for those late nights at her computer, about novels she had read, and those 50s pin-up girls that she once thought charmingly old-fashioned. If that was Eddie's ideal woman, she'd have to mold herself to fit.

"I'm s-sorry if I'm nervous, Eddie. Is it okay, if I'm a little nervous?"

"Oh darling, it's natural for a woman to be nervous for her first night with her husband," Eddie answered soothingly, broad hands resting on her shoulders and turning her slowly so he could look at her fully. His expression was dark and hungry, his voice turning deeper, almost rumbling in baritone. "Oh it's been such a long time since I've seen such a beautiful girl. You don't know how hard it's been to keep myself from you, this whole time. No other woman in this place has come close to what you are…"

"Other women?"

"No, no, let's not talk about them. Those _whores_. This night is for you. For us." He smoothed her hair back and kissed her temple, the roughness of the scars on his lips scratching at her ear. Peeling away his gloves, he placed both hands onto her shoulders, massaging his calloused thumbs into the muscles before dragging them slowly downward, leaving off only to brush his fingertips against the sides of her chest. And unlike Jeremy Blaire, who had molested her only because of his power trip displays, Eddie was truly enjoying her for the more carnal side of things. His hands were large and wide enough to cover both breasts, fingers splaying and trailing along the soft mounds of flesh before seizing her by the ribs and pushing her down into the mattress.

She landed with a little bounce, arms lifted and chest bared to the chilly air, her dark hair splayed all around her upper half, the white fabric of her wedding dress draped over the rest of her. Feeling more than a little disgusted with herself, she hunched her shoulders a bit and…wiggled, almost as if she was bracing herself against the mattress for him. She had to act like she wanted this. Like she wanted him.

Eddie seemed to like what he saw, at least. His red eyes widened in the dim light, their blue centers glinting greedily. He pulled off his bow-tie, flinging it to the side as his thick fingers fumbled with his shirt buttons, shaking with effort; too impatient to unbutton them carefully, too fastidious to break them. He left the stitched fabric half hanging open on his broad shoulders. Eddie cut an even more imposing figure when his gentleman costume was off. Lisa didn't know what regimen they kept him on, but they had clearly been training the man for something. He was even more massive and muscular than the first time she had seen him in the engine room, though now his skin seemed more sickly and pale, criss-crossed with scars and his side and back covered by the same ghastly red lesions on his face.

He fell upon her eagerly, dwarfing the smaller woman under him as took one breast back in hand, marveling in its softness as his head dipped down and his flat wet tongue slathered along her chest. Lisa turned her gaze to the ceiling as she felt his moist breath rasping across her bosom, his tongue trailing a circle around her left breast, leaning forward to capture her nipple in his mouth. He licked and sucked and sighed in that happily content manner, and mistook her squirming as a sign of pleasure.

"Tell me you want this," he demanded huskily.

"I do! I want- I love you, Eddie."

She winced as he suckled hard against her chest, his teeth scraping at the sensitive flesh before lifting off her suddenly. His shoulders were heaving again, breath deep and labored, almost like when she had seen him kill the mannequin. He was groping at the front of his pants, and she could see the straining bulge at the front of them even from where she was laying. She could only watch nervously as he finally managed to snap the button free, pulling them and his underwear down lower around his hips. Just like the rest of him, Eddie was enormous; far larger than any man she had ever had. He groaned happily as he was finally relieved of the pressure of being bound away, grasping the thick length of flesh in one fist and stroking himself several times.

Lisa balked slightly, curling herself against the mattress beneath him. "Eddie…I don't know i-if I can fit-"

"It'll fit. It always fits. I'll make it fit," he rasped curtly.

His hands seized the dress on either side of her, shimmying it down carefully before yanking them down and off her, lifting her legs to pull the poofy collection of white fabric away. He was still careful with it, reverently folding the garment over one arm before tossing it to a nearby chair. Her undergarments were not so valuable to him. He hooked a thumb beneath the waistband and Lisa winced and yelped slightly as they squeezed taut and then snapped, ripping noisily before he tossed them onto the floor. He cupped a hand between her legs roughly, feeling the smoothness of her, but his eyes narrowed a moment later, as he pried her open with one thick finger and felt her.

"…You're dry. Don't you _want_ this?"

"Eddie, I'm sorry. It's just nerves! I'm just nervous! You know how silly I get ab-"

Her placations didn't seem to work. He slammed a strained fist into the softness of the mattress next to her. "You're my _wife_! How can you be like this on our wedding night! Don't you know what this means to me!?"

His voice was rising to a shout, and Lisa panicked, settling on the most obvious solution to the problem even as her mind screamed at her not to. She jolted upward from the bed suddenly, grasping onto his shoulders hard enough to startle the man. "Eddie! Eddie, I wanted to do something else with you! Because I'm dry! I'm sorry, it's my fault, I'm so silly!" His brows lowered, but she cupped his scarred face and urged him to look her in the eye. "Eddie, here, here. It's because I wanted to try this…with you."

She started to slide herself downward, and he watched with danger still in his gaze until her intent was clear. As she shifted onto her stomach before him, he seemed to relax once more.

"Yes, darling…make it wetter."

Lisa stared at him a moment longer, eyes clenching shut as she mentally steeled herself once more. She couldn't panic. Panic never solved anything. She had to do this. At least the open blood lesions on his body didn't extend this far down. And if she did this for him, it would make him happy, and a happy Eddie was a less murderous Eddie.

Her tongue darted out along the engorged head of his member, and she heard an accompanying rumble of approval. A large hand impatiently gripped the back of her head, and she opened her mouth wide, cushioning his entry with her tongue. There was simply no physical way she could fit all of him into her mouth without tearing her lips, but she didn't trust her new husband to respect that, so she wrapped one small fist around the very base of him. She just needed to keep his passions going, make him wet enough for this to work. So she lowered her mouth slowly onto him, letting her saliva dribble from the corners of her lips. After a few moments she began bobbing her head, working him in and out as her slickened palm took care of the rest of him.

Eddie's fingers tightened in her hair, uttering a satisfied groan as his wife's head bobbed to and fro below him, the wet noises of her sucking and the saliva squelching in her palm filling his ears. He leaned back so he could watch her face, admiring the beautiful purple-blue of the bruise over her socket and the way her eyes glittered when she looked up at him, and gently moved a finger to pull away a lock of dampened hair that had stuck to her forehead.

"Yessss, that's a good girl. Sweet girl. Here now, I think we're ready…"

He pushed her back onto the mattress once more, grasping both ankles and lifting them around him. She yelped, crying something about her hurt leg, but he barely heard her. He pulled her up against him, grasping his member and guiding the head to the smooth opening between her thighs. Her face scrunched uncomfortably as he slowly pressed into her, pushing until he felt the tip slide just inside her. He leaned over her, resting his weight on both hands as she looked up at him unsurely.

"I'm sorry, darling, but this is the part…that hurts."

He slammed his hips forward and his poor wife shrieked, entire body convulsing from the force of it. He shushed her gently, stilling and allowing her to adjust. Lisa tried not to move beneath him. It may not have been the virginal deflowering that Eddie was imagining…far from it, in fact, but the immense girth that was now pushing deeper into her still caused her enough pain for it to be comparable. He was starting to move over her, impatiently twitching his hips back and forth, and Lisa grit her teeth and bore it as best she could.

"Shh, shh. I know that it's not pleasant for your first time…but you're doing so well. Oh I love you!"

Something about the phrase 'first time' brought an alarming thought to the back of her mind, the part that wasn't trying to shield from the man grunting and thrusting above her. First time. She still had to pretend it was her first time. She very subtly moved one arm to the edge of the bed, making it seem like she was gripping the side…but reached and stretched, finally finding the sharp outer corner of the steel bedframe, pressing her palm until it and jerking it to the side as she felt the skin tear open.

 _Yes!_

Eddie had lost patience with her discomfort and was in the full throes of his rut. He was grasping onto her unwounded leg, his hips snapping back and forth, powerful form jolting over her as his hips pounded into hers again and again. He barely took notice of the woman herself, as she brought her bleeding palm to the sheets below and smeared fresh red into the fabric. She merely groaned, occasionally whimpered, and resigned herself to waiting it out as her groom's body suddenly shuddered hard, slamming into her a few final times before he gasped noisily and pulled her hard against him; a disgusting sticky warmth spilling inside her.

He stayed that way for several long moments, before he finally shivered and pulled out of her, lowering her legs carefully back down and collapsing next to her with a satisfied grin. "Wasn't that magnificent, darling?"

Lisa made a little affirmative noise in her throat, curling into a ball next to him.

"Now, don't be shy. It's always a little awkward for your first try. You did so well. You barely even bled at all, look. And don't worry about the sheets, I can show you how to wash them."

She nodded.

"It will get better, darling. I'll show you. We'll just do this until we both feel good, until my seed takes, and we have our first child. Don't you fret, my dear, it's only your first night. We'll keep trying."

She mumbled something in reply, but Gluskin was already pulling her close, a sleepy smile on his face as he wrapped both arms around her once more. He nuzzled his scarred face against her cheek and then buried his face into her hair, and very promptly fell asleep.

Lisa listened to his breath hiss into her ear, a dull ache throbbing between her legs and a more stinging pain in the newly-opened gash on her left palm. She squeezed one hand into the other and chased all thoughts clear from her mind. She didn't want to think. Not right now. So she held her wounded hand in the other and thought of nothing, staring blankly at the wall and waiting for sunrise.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7**

* * *

For the next two days she mostly slept, awakening only when Eddie 'got home', took her to the bathroom, changed her bandages, and pleaded with her to eat something. Then he would fuck her, she would blank out and fall asleep again, and it all repeated. The headaches and cramps still plagued her the few hours she had to be awake, her wounded leg throbbing with what she hoped wasn't too serious an infection, accompanied by a tenderness between her thighs thanks to Eddie's rough attentions, and her belly felt bloated and sore.

On the third day she jolted awake, clawing at Eddie's arms in an effort to get free. Sweat beaded on her cold forehead and her gut was churning, last night's dinner of instant noodles and cola apparently not settling well. She managed to roll off the bed, staggering towards the door and uselessly yanking at the knob. It was as locked as ever and she collapsed to her knees in front of it, holding both arms wrapped around her middle.

Eddie sat up in bed, eyes still groggy with slumber, "Honey?"

"Eddie, I don't…I don't feel w-"

Her last words turned into a rather disgusting bubbling noise, then she bent double and promptly vomited all over the floor. She heaved and gagged, body rocking with effort as she vaguely heard her new husband leave the bed and start towards her, and quailed as she felt a heavy hand land on her shoulder. Proper women weren't supposed to have upset stomachs or upchuck last night's dinner. There was no telling how he would react.

"Eddie, I'm sorry, I didn't mean-" She coughed at the foul taste still in her throat and clamped a hand over her mouth. "I'm sorry!"

"Shhh, darling, there there. Feel better?"

He tsk'd and stroked her face, pulling her hair back and holding it there, other arm rubbing her back gently as she gagged up one last mouthful of bile. Lisa covered her mouth once more and turned to eye him warily, nodding to signal that she was done. She kept expecting him to strike her, or perhaps he was merely still sleepy and was preparing to scream at her for her mistake; but he merely offered her one of his lopsided smiles.

"Oh sweetheart, don't look that way. I'm not mad! Darling, I'm not mad at you, shhh. It's to be expected. It's just a little bout of morning sickness! This is actually a good thing! It means my baby just wants something a little more nutritious than what you've been having. He wants his mother to eat more so he can be healthy! Do you feel better now?" He shushed her again and helped pull her upright, one enormous hand curling slightly over her belly. "I thought I noticed your dresses were looking a bit tight! Hold on, give me just a moment."

"Eddie, it might just be bad noodles. Maybe they weren't cooked enough. You know, bad noodles? And not…morning sickness…" She sighed as his baby fantasy reared its ugly head once more, watching as he rummaged through one of the desks.

"Ah-ha!"

He held up his measuring tape and hurried back over, gesturing for her to stand straight as he wrapped it around her middle. He settled his thumb on one of the numbers, then triumphantly held it so she could see. Lisa's brow knitted abruptly as she stared at the measurements. There, marked on the tape in black ink, was the stroke where Eddie had measured her waist when he was making her dresses a few days ago. His thumb now sat well past that, by several inches. She'd barely been eating to even keep herself alive, but she had grown.

She looked down at herself, feeling over her stomach. "It might…just be the noodles. Just a bit of bloat from the food…"

"It's not," he assured her cheerfully, "I can't believe I'm finally going to be a father! I'll finally get the chance to…Oh, darling, I knew you were the perfect woman. Not only beautiful and well-behaved and yielding, but fertile and just waiting to nourish my seed…"

Lisa nearly threw up again then and there. "No!"

"Oh yes, darling, yes, you're pregnant!"

* * *

Lisa turned and leaned heavily against the wall, one hand over her clammy forehead. It was just bad noodles. Bad food. It was preposterous. Of course she wasn't pregnant. But then again, it felt so eerily close to what she had already experienced with her sons. The morning sickness really did feel like, well, morning sickness. The ache in her gut felt heavier than just the gaseous byproduct of bad food. God, it really did feel like…

Eddie must have noticed her look of despair.

"Darling! This is such good news! Aren't you _happy_?"

She scrambled to find a smile to put on her face. "Oh it's just…it's so much to take in, Eddie. There's just so many things to..to think of and I-" Her eyes darted and she tried to find a subject to distract him with, finally pointing to the puddle of vomit by the door. "I'm so embarrassed! Don't you think I should clean up? I-I need to go the bathroom…"

It worked. Eddie's chest puffed up immediately and he moved to pull on the rest of his clothes as he went back into his 'doting husband' mode. "Oh! Yes, you probably do want to get cleaned up. In fact," he paused, moving to scoop her up once more with one arm as he unlocked the door, "This actually works well with my surprise for you today."

"I've already had a lot of surprises today, Eddie."

"You've been so dreary lately, darling. I can barely get you to eat, you do nothing but sleep while I'm at work, and when we make love you just lay there. I'm starting to think you might be…" he glanced around scandalously, lowering his voice to a whisper. "You might be a little depressed. Having a child takes a lot of toll on a woman's body and mind, I know. And I know you're still healing, and you and the baby need rest, but you've really let the housework get away from you."

"…Have I?" she remarked dryly.

"So I've decided that you need to get out more."

Her eyes widened, looking up at him hopeful disbelief. "We're going to get out? We can go?"

"Darling, I really don't understand your preoccupation with 'going' places. You need to strike that from your thoughts. We have everything we need right here, and we have each other. But you silly dear, you can't spend all your time in bed! So I'm going to open up this hallway to you here, and the bathroom and closet there, and…oh sweetheart, the look on your face! Does that make you happy? You look so much more beautiful when you're happy!"

Lisa's mind was whirring with ideas. Her world was going to be expanded from just that damned locked room. There would be doors, and supplies, and possible routes of escape, and toilets she could visit any time she wanted. It was all she could do not to clap her hands together. "Oh I…Yes, Eddie, you're right. I think it would be good for me."

"That's my darling! I've made sure everything is safe for you, and when you're done cleaning yourself up here, there's a mop and bucket by the closet for you so you can get started on tidying the rest of the house. And, oh my goodness, I don't want to be late for work! Here, you should have everything you need. I need to hurry!"

Lisa was summarily abandoned by the bathroom door as Eddie leaned down to press his lips to her cheek before striding away, sorting through his keys and vanishing through a door further down the hall. She still had no idea what Eddie's 'job' was, and didn't dare ask where it was that he went every day. Whatever he was doing, it gave her some much-needed time to herself. Above all, her act was working, and the deluded madman had upped her privileges. Granted, her new 'area' wasn't that much greater than her room, which she found out as soon as she actually tried to leave. She had the bathroom, a few supply closets, and several ransacked rooms with a maze of tipped-over furniture, but beyond that and a lengthy span of hallway, she was still locked in.

* * *

She spent a few hours going through her new territory, pulling at doors and trying windows, but she knew there was no way out there, and found as much. One thing she did find, sitting on a table just outside her room, was her camera.

She flipped the window and scrolled through her footage; everything was there from her first escape, with the poor lunatic who had found her and his ensuing grisly death, recordings of patients wandering through the halls and chasing each other from a distance, her running from her own pursuers, and even several minutes of nothing but her breathing while she was hiding in a locker and had forgotten to turn it off…and then there was footage she hadn't seen.

She had dropped her camera when those men had tried to come at her in the breakroom, where her camera went spinning and tumbling to the ground, capturing her screams as one of the men pierced her leg with the rebar, and then muffled laughter and the rip of fabric as she cried softly in the background. She winced and almost went to fast forward the tape when there were more shrieks, and Eddie's familiar rash-covered visage loomed on her camera, picking it up and looking into it curiously before it cut away.

The next footage was more steady, but the sound was off. Eddie was behind the camera and he seemed awkwardly new to the device, pointing it down at the floor and his shoes before finally aiming the lens at the bed, where Lisa's bruised and unconscious body lay barely breathing, wearing nothing but her bloody nightshirt and bandages around her wounded leg. Eddie was leaning over her, holding the camera as he slowly trailed it up and down her body several times.

Lisa's frown deepened as his gloved hand took the edges of her nightshirt and slowly tugged it upward, revealing her naked form for his inspection…then he was grasping one of her breasts, rolling it in his palm as the camera focused there. Lisa cursed aloud. She knew that he had molested her while she'd been out, but the sick freak had _recorded_ it! Eddie spent several minutes massaging her chest on camera, before she impatiently hit fast-forward, the images blurring as she watched his hands trailing around her body and then down between her thighs, spreading her open as a finger pried inside her. And of course, he'd recorded all that too, and Lisa watched with a strange disconnected disgust as he violated her on tape, dipping his finger into her again and again before adding another. Several times she must have moaned or shifted, as the camera would suddenly jerk up to her sleeping face, then back down to his fingers thrusting into her.

He spent some time like that, as though trying to pleasure her passed-out form even though she could feel no pleasure (or anything else in her state) before pulling his fingers free, admiring the way they glistened in the light, shining with her wetness. Then the camera shifted again and…Lisa had to pause and take a deep breath before pressing play again…there was a first-person view of Eddie unbuttoning his pants, pulling his rock-hard member free and rather desperately covering himself with the glistening moisture on his fingertips. He spent several long moments stroking himself before he became impatient with the camera, silently fumbling with the device before shoving it onto a tabletop close by. It was still aimed at the bed and his massive form as he leaned over her, masturbating himself for what seemed like ages, his face twisting grotesquely from the effort.

He came eventually, finishing on the side of her bed as he wiped his hand on her sheets. Then Lisa watched in horrified fascination as he began kissing her, wrapping both arms around her limp body and half-lifting her, cradling the back of her head and kissing her deeply and repeatedly despite no sign of consciousness from her at all. Her head draped uselessly over his arm, her lips half-open and unresponsive as he gazed at her with a strange look on his scarred face, his mouth moving with silent words thanks to the camera's muted functions. Then his expression changed and his grasp on her shifted, his hands seizing her throat and starting to shake her.

Lisa absent-mindedly lifted a hand to her throat as she watched him choke her on the tape. Her seemingly lifeless body flopped back and forth in his arms, head lolling as his hands tightened further around her windpipe. The whole time his mouth was moving, like he was screaming at her. It looked like he was repeating something, judging by his lip movements, something like _WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP WAKE UP_ , just over and over again…and when it became clear that killing her was not waking her up, he finally threw her back onto the bed in one frustrated movement, sitting down next to her and burying his face in his hands. After several long minutes, he finally looked over and reached to shut the camera off.

The next thing on the tape was Eddie singing as he gathered paper streamers for their wedding.

 _When I was a boy, my mother said to me…_

* * *

Lisa slowly closed the camera's viewing screen, her hands shaking slightly. Only days earlier he had come moments away from outright murdering her, and now he was convinced that he'd gotten her pregnant and had presented her with a mop and bucket in this deluded game of house he insisted on playing…There was probably some psychology term for it; projection maybe, or some weird mind synapse misfire that fueled his obsession with being 'the loving husband' and 'the good father', and in turn demanded Lisa be his 'good little wife' and apparently 'mother'.

And he could be back at any moment.

She scrambled up with renewed vigor, limping back down the filthy hall to retrieve said mop and bucket, filling it with water and soap and enough pine-scented cleaner to hopefully cover up the smell of rotted entrails and old blood. Her bad leg still slowed her down and made hauling the bucket difficult, and sent a pang of heartache through her chest when she remembered how it was always Waylon who had done the majority of the mopping and cleaning. And he had always done it cheerfully, no matter what kind of mess the boys had made.

She mentally put another jot down on her to-do list. Escape. Sue Jeremy Blaire. Get tetanus shots. Fix her leg…Then go home and clean the house top-to-bottom and thank Waylon for every domestic chore he had ever done.

At least, as messy as her boys could be, their messes were usually cracker crumbs and melted candies. Lisa was stuck cleaning smears of blood, piss, feces, her own vomit, and god knows what else off the linoleum, all while trying not to get her dress dirty. It wasn't long before her mop water was several different shades of filthy brown, but she had at least managed to scrub away her 'morning sickness' and clean a respectable length of the main hallway. Hopefully it would be enough to make Eddie happy, even if just kept her alive one more day.

Her swollen stomach was starting to ache again, but at least her nose wasn't bleeding. Eddie had already given her a mild scolding for that, as though it was something she could stop. But a scolding was better than him choking her again…

* * *

She heard footsteps coming down the hall at a rapid pace and she lifted herself hurriedly from where she had been scrubbing the floors, adjusting her dress and plucking her apron. There was the familiar jangle of a heavy bunch of keys, and Lisa almost struck a pose with her mop, plastering a shaky smile on her face as she waited for the usual corny ' _Honey I'm home!_ ' from her maniac husband.

The door clicked its lock and swung open and Lisa stared. It wasn't Eddie, but it was someone familiar to her. Of all fucking people…

His expensive suit had been torn in several places and the jacket was hanging off his shoulders with all the buttons popped. His shirt was askew and stained red, and he was missing a shoe. His normally perfectly-styled hair was messy and hung limp over his bloodshot-stressed gaze, and his mouth hung open as he stared back at her, leaning heavily on the doorframe as the two awkwardly faced each other.

"…Lisa Park?"

"…Mr. Blaire?"


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8**

* * *

Blaire's gaze wandered over her, looking genuinely baffled. "What are you wearing? Why do you have a mop?"

Lisa looked down at herself slowly, too tired to even argue how ridiculous she looked. "I was…cleaning up."

Even the normally quick Jeremy Blaire couldn't come up with a follow-up to that answer, so he shook his head, dragging a hand down over his bruised face, licking at a spot of dried blood on his lip. "Okay. Mrs. Lisa Park…can I call you Lisa?"

"No."

"Listen, Lisa, I do not mind telling you that I've had a fucking time of it. These fuckers, I swear, there must be hundreds of them out there. I know we've been at capacity for a while but it never seems like there's that many until they're all out wandering the halls, you know? And the officers on duty? Goddamn worthless. Half of them turned and ran away when the first alarm went off. There are going to be some pink slips when I get out of here, along with some other things…" His voice lowered to a dangerous mutter. "Leaving me in this shithole like that, they're going to wish they'd stayed and died. But you…managed to not die."

Lisa pursed her lips at him, still leaning on her mop. Her other hand was folded politely behind her back, holding the camera. Its light was on, recording everything the erstwhile executive was saying.

"How did you manage out there? Being the only woman in the place, it's…You must be either very talented or a bit nutty yourself, Lisa, although I have to be honest with you, I'm leaning a bit towards the latter because your weird dress and mop thing is pretty fucking offputting at the moment."

"It's a long story. I was able to-"

"Oooo, let's put a pin in that, Lisa. We don't have too much time for long stories at the moment. I'm only here because Chris Pig-Lovin' Walker is on my trail and he is not out to make friends with me or anybody else. I thought I could get out by the courtyard but the gate wouldn't open, so I tried climbing out, but it turns out all those security measures to keep our murderous shitstacks _inside_ were working a little too well. Look at this, I even lost a shoe. And my keys don't seem to work half the time."

Lisa's eyes widened, staggering forward a little suddenly. "You have keys? To this Ward?"

"Apparently not all the keys, but-"

"We need to go. Now." She turned, abandoning her cleaning supplies as she limped a few steps down the hall.

He didn't move to follow her and she glanced back, consternation written on her bruised features. He merely tilted his chin up slightly, upnodding towards her. "What is it you have there, Lisa?"

She grit her teeth together, holding her camera behind her back and acutely aware of how childish it sounded when she answered, "Nothing…"

He smiled in a way that was somehow even more patronizing than usual. "Lisaaaa."

For just a brief moment, she pulled the camera out and waved it from side to side before replacing it behind her. "It's nothing. Listen, you've already said it, we don't have time. We need to go!"

"That's not nothing, Lisa. Have you been recording me? Really? We've both been through the ringer here and you're recording me?"

"Mr. Blaire…"

"You still planning on suing me, Miss Park? You want to sue Murkoff?"

Her skin was prickling slightly beneath her dress. Like everything else lately, this wasn't going well. She could see the keys on Jeremy's belt, just steps away. She took another step down the hall, hoping he'd move to follow. He did not.

"Mr. Blaire, please, we need to move. You said someone was chasing you, and I have someone who-"

"What else have you recorded there, Lisa?"

"A patient gave it to me. He killed himself. In that little room where you put me. After you…" She trailed off, watching his eyes. His gaze darted to her stomach, and she lifted a hand to point at him in a very accusatory way. "There! The way you looked at me then! What is this, Blaire! Why is my nose bleeding and my head hurting and what is THIS?!" She pointed to her swollen belly.

"Lisa…We don't really have time to worry about that now, do we? Just think of it as a healthy glow, heh. How about you just hand over that little home movie you're making, then we can leave this shithole and get you looked at by our doctors. I assure you that there will be a formal monetary compensation, as well as-"

"No."

"Lisa, give me tape."

"Mr. Blaire!"

"I said to give me the fucking tape, Lisa!"

She saw him reach into his ragged coat, pulling something dull and shining from inside as he lunged towards her. She was already moving, throwing herself to the side as his knife cut the air, swishing dangerously close to her face. She went skidding across the newly cleaned floors, overturning her bucket full of suds and grasping her mop once more. The dirty water went sloshing across the linoleum and Lisa listened to the rapid squeaking of his shoe as he tried to find footing, one leg going out from under him as he cursed and fell backwards into the mess.

Her own bare feet, filthy as they were, found traction more easily, and as Jeremy flopped about in the middle of the floor and tried to rise, she lifted her mop and brought it down across his back as hard as she could. He collapsed with a yelp so she hit him with it again, leaving it across his bruised spine as she turned and hobbled as fast as she could into one of the darkened rooms nearby, slamming the door behind her.

"Lisa!"

She heard the door open several minutes later as she sat huddled beneath a desk, one hand over her mouth to stifle her breathing, the other holding her camera up to her eye. Jeremy Blaire's pupils gleamed like beacons in the dark, turning to flick at the useless light switch several times before moving blindly forward into the storeroom, his knife half raised.

"Lisa, let's make a deal! If you let me have that tape, I'll throw the knife away, and we can leave on good terms! We can still salvage this!"

She didn't budge from her spot, watching the man bend to look beneath a nearby table. He was moving slowly, occasionally stopping to hold his injured back. She must have hit him harder than she thought.

 _Good._

"Lisa, come on! We both know this isn't a game you can win! Don't be crazy! I've had it up to fucking _here_ with crazy people lately!"

She heard him overturn a stack of chairs and she crouched low, clutching her bad leg as she hurriedly wobbled away behind a nearby shelf.

"There's nowhere you can go, Lisa! If you want to be a crazy bitch in here with the rest of them, fine! You're not getting out of here without me!"

She grasped a nearby plank of broken wood, sending it hurtling through the air so it clattered on the other side of the room.

"Ah-ha!"

His pupils turned, two lights in the shadows as he descended on the noise, and she took the chance to head for another door, creaking it open and slinking back into the hall, moving towards the door where Jeremy had entered the Ward. If she could get out, maybe backtrack through the halls…

She found it locked, pulling frantically at the handle several times before turning and starting to limp back towards her room. She could hide there, maybe pile furniture against the door and hold out long enough…

"Lisaaaaa Park!"

Blaire lunged at her from one of the other rooms as she staggered back, the very edge of the knife cutting open a single red slice of her forearm. She screamed and turned to run again but his hands clutched at the billowing fabric of her dress, grasping the charming bow of her apron as she started forward, and she was sent into a spin as she tried to pull away, the apron cinching hard against her middle. The movement caused Jeremy's next strike to miss its mark in her chest, but the knife was still brought down hard into her upper back, plunging in to scrape the bone of her scapula. She screamed again and struggled against his grasp, bringing up her wounded leg to kick him as hard as she could in the balls…and missed. Instead her foot wobbled and hit him hard in the center of his stomach, bruising and breaking the toes of her already injured foot but winding him hard enough that he bent double, loosening his grasp on her apron's ribbons as she broke free and hobbled forward.

From up ahead, she heard another door open, lifting her voice as shrilly as she could.

" _EDDIE! EDDIEEEEE!_ "

Jeremy coughed for air, throwing aside the useless apron onto the floor, watching as the limping woman made another run for it. He wheezed for what breath he could before running after her, turning the corner after her as he lifted his knife to finally end their little chase.

"Fucking bitch! I knew y-"

Something very large and strong grabbed onto his arm before he could even blink, an enormous hand grasping onto his forearm and squeezing hard enough that his bones cracked. Blaire yelled as his hand seized, fingers clenching as the knife clattered to the ground, looking up at the massive form of a patient already quite familiar to him. The rashes and welts on his face from his last visits to the Morphogenic Engine were all there, along with the bloody capillaries in his eyes, and the man grunted, nostrils flaring as he seized the front of Jeremy's dress shirt and slammed him hard up against the wall.

Jeremy clutched at his arm, color draining from his face as he dangled from the immense man's grasp. "Gl-Gluskin! Wait! Wait, listen!"

Gluskin's gloved hand tightened in the fabric of the smaller man's shirt, leather creaking ominously. Eddie's jaw was clenched so hard he could hear the teeth scraping and he seemed having trouble making words. His dilated pupils were pools of black against bright, bright blue and red, staring pure hatred into Jeremy's as he hissed aloud, "My… _wife_. How _dare_ …"

Jeremy's eyes darted wildly, glancing aside to where Lisa was standing a few feet away. She was still holding the camera, lifting it up near her eye as she stared stone-faced at the two as she recorded the proceedings.

"Lisa! Lisa, Gluskin, listen, this isn't…we don't need to…Misunderstanding! This is all-"

Eddie shoved him hard against the wall once more, the back of his skull cracking painfully. Both men looked expectantly towards the smaller woman standing placidly in the middle of the hallway. She eyed Jeremy balefully for a long moment, and there was silence except for Eddie's gorilla-like breathing and the terrified hyperventilating of Blaire.

Finally, Lisa reached up and clicked one of the little buttons, her gaze softening slightly as she lowered the camera a bit.

Jeremy exhaled loudly. "Thank you! Thank you! Listen, w-"

Lisa spoke up gently, lowering one hand to cradle her stomach.

"Eddie…Eddie, he was trying to hurt the baby."

Jeremy Blaire's expression slackened in utter shock, and Eddie uttered a noise that couldn't even be described as human. The madman's insanity flared to a raw peak, a roar of pure and primal rage and fury ripping its way from his vocal chords.

Lisa hit the button on her camera and began recording again.

Blaire flailed and clawed but there was no way he stood a chance, no matter how he screamed and begged. Eddie lifted him one-handed and brought him slamming into the floor, flinging him like a ragdoll as he bent down over the smaller man, bringing a strained fist repeatedly into his ribs, then into Blaire's face, punching him until his jaw cracked and his yelling became gurgling. Eddie didn't falter in his onslaught, blood beginning to spatter from his fists as they broke through the victim's skin, raining blow after violent blow on his newest victim.

Lisa kept the camera lifted, though her grasp was shaking slightly and she couldn't help but wince as the noises of breaking flesh and cracking bones turned more and more to the sounds of sloshing liquid. As much as she had hated Jeremy Blaire, this had gotten a little out of hand. What had she done?

It seemed like hours had passed when Eddie finally drew back, sweat pouring from his face, the entire front of him speckled with droplets of red and his chest still heaving savagely. Blaire's remains lay twisted on the hallway floor, his chest and ribs completely broken and caved and his head was little more than a crushed mess of flesh and broken shards of skull.

In some far-off little corner of Lisa's mind she mentally went through her checklist. There was no longer any need to sue Jeremy Blaire. Because there was no longer a Jeremy Blaire at all.

Eddie stumbled upright as Lisa lowered her camera, and she tried not to flinch as her gore-drenched husband wrapped both immense arms around her, leaning his down over hers and rocking her gently back and forth. "Darling! My angel, you're shaking like a leaf…You're bleeding, your dress is dirty…Shhhh, no, no, it's all right now. I have you, you're safe. He will never hurt you again, see? _Never_ again."

Lisa was not the only one shaking. Eddie was trembling as well, likely overstimulated from the outburst of violence, and as he rocked her back and forth his grasp became tighter and tighter until he was squeezing her enough to hurt, smothering her hard against his broad chest, his voice still hoarse and ragged.

"Your back is hurt…and your arm. He hurt you. He touched you. Filthy. Filthy…That _whore_. Trying to tarnish you, trying to hurt my _babies_. She's no better than the others! She was jealous of you, darling! Jealous of our children, our _family_!"

"Eddie…" she wheezed painfully, trying to pull away. "Eddie, I can't breathe."

He seemed genuinely startled as he looked back down at her, finally releasing his crushing embrace. He bent to one knee, running his calloused thumb along her cheek and smoothing her tousled hair back behind her ear before examining her bleeding arm.

"Oh my sweet girl…You're very brave. You knew to run to me, didn't you? You knew I would protect you…"

"I…Yes, Eddie, I did."

"Because you love me. And I love you. I love you so much, you'll never understand. You…you need to get back home, right away. Shut the door behind you, don't let anyone in until you're sure it's me. I'll keep you safe, my darling. Go. Go now."

Lisa looked from Eddie's pained expression to the mess of Blaire's corpse, and the little ring of keys still attached to his belt.

Eddie took her other arm and very softly urged her down the hall, pushing her forward. "No, darling, don't look at it. It's not decent for women such as yourself to lay eyes on such a thing. I'll take care of everything. You just go back home."

She paused to give the keys one last longing look before walking onward obediently. By the time she could look back again, Eddie had grabbed the mangled corpse by both legs and was dragging it away, taking the keys with him and leaving no chances of freedom behind him; nothing but pools of blood and smears of red…as usual, for Eddie Gluskin.

She shut the doors of the stifling little room that served as their home, half-heartedly jamming a chair under the knob as though that would do anything. Another headache was buzzing in her ears, and there was a guilty throb of answering pain from the 'baby' inside her. She kept thinking she could hear Blaire screaming from down the hall, another casualty of Gluskin's desire for a family…and Lisa's own cold orders of murder. She tried to focus instead on her newest wounds, pouring yet more of her precious peroxide over the marks of Blaire's knife, watching in fascination as blood poured down her arm and the foam turned a sickly pink. No doubt Eddie would want to stitch these up, stitch her up just as pretty as all her dresses. He would clearly do anything for his wife…

She sat down on the edge of the bed, listening to the silence and Blaire's imaginary screaming, and waited for Eddie to come home.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9**

* * *

"Darling! Darling, I'm coming in. I made everything safe again."

Lisa jolted from her reverie as Eddie's familiar lisp sounded at the door, and after a moment's hesitation, she lifted and pulled the chair away from under the handle. Eddie barged in immediately, descending on her with both arms and crushing her back to his massive chest, lifting her off her feet as he buried his face back into her tangled hair.

"I didn't want to leave you alone for too long, my dear. I knew you must have been so scared, even here at home. That ugly, filthy whore…I took care of everything, darling, you'll never have to see or think of her ever again."

"Her…" Lisa echoed warily as Eddie released her. The fact that Jeremy Blaire had posthumously changed genders in Eddie's eyes spoke volumes. He had started off as an actual he, and the angrier Eddie became, the more womanly and whorish he'd decided Blaire must have been. Threatening his 'wife' and his 'baby' had been crime enough; but even then, Blaire had to become a woman…just before Eddie killed him.

"Darling, I swear, I don't know who she was," Eddie protested rather meekly, lifting both hands. "I would never stoop to socialize with such vile filth, not even when I was waiting for you. She was nobody. She was jealous of us. She deserved to die. No. No, let's not talk about her. It's all been taken care of. I don't want you to strain yourself. I know how vulnerable and emotional you can be…"

Lisa kept her expression placid but breathed out a little harder than usual. "Yes. It's very… _difficult_."

Her husband smiled, his mangled face splitting into one of his harmlessly silly grins. "It's just the hormones from the pregnancy, sweetheart. It must all be very overwhelming for you, but you're doing so well…and you're more beautiful than ever. Although I do worry you're not eating enough. Why don't you make us something delicious for dinner? It's been a very long day for both of us."

She smiled back at him, then turned to their little room's closet, her smile fading and turning into a grimace. Eddie had no idea what pregnancy hormones could do to a woman. It was very likely that no woman he'd been with had ever had the chance to progress that far, before he tortured and murdered them before mutilating their remains.

She rummaged through a duffel bag of purloined supplies. Luckily for them, Eddie's rule of the roost had allowed him to loot the local machines and break rooms with little competition. Unluckily for them, it was still vending machine food and break room snacks, and chocolate bars and ramen noodles did little to whet their appetites, even as anemic as her appetite had been.

"There's still some bread left…ugh, it's gone a bit moldy on the end, but some of it's still good. Eddie, do you like peanut butter?"

"…I suppose that will be fine. Hmph. I'll need to stop by the kitchens, won't I?"

Lisa nodded with a little shrug, pulling out the 'ingredients' for their dinner, her plastic knife scraping the bottom of the peanut butter jar for their plain white bread sandwiches and a helping of starchy onion ring snacks. No doubt her sons at home would have been thrilled at the prospect of such a meal. They had always put up a fuss when it came time to eat. She still remembered just before she had left for Mount Massive, how Waylon had cooked organic noodles with three types of cheese and a crumb topping, and her boys had complained because it didn't come from the blue box with the smiling dinosaur on it.

She jumped slightly when Eddie's voice rumbled from behind her. "Darling…"

The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She knew that tone. She briefly shut her eyes and tried to keep on task, wiping more peanut butter onto the bread and making a show of rustling through the bags. "That does it for the peanut butter! I think we still have some cookies left, do you want cookies? Or there are those little fruit pies, I think I saw you eat one of those the other day, or we could h-"

His large hands pressed in on both her arms, stilling her progress as he leaned over her. "My sweet little wife…you look so nice in that dress, hard at work making dinner."

"You make nice dresses, Eddie," she answered mechanically. "I should get back to-"

He pulled her away from the table, her back still facing him, scraping his nails up and down her arms. "It can wait. No, no, put that down for now. It can wait…but I can't. Angel, you're still so tense, aren't you? I can tell. Here, let me help you relax."

"I'm fine. I'm really fine."

His breath huffed warmly on the back of one ear and she blanched as his dry lips came to nibble on the top, dragging down to toy with the lobe. She shuddered, and she could practically hear him smile as he muttered, "Are you nervous because of the the baby?"

"…Yes," Lisa said, her fingers curling around the flimsy plastic of the little knife and wishing it was a real blade.

"What an innocent girl you are. But you shouldn't worry, we can still make love. It won't hurt the baby. I'll be gentle…" Eddie leaned down to press more kisses to the side of her neck, voice already deeper, huskier with warped lust. "I promise."

"But…Eddie, I'm tired. Aren't you tired?"

"Shhhh, darling, this will help you. Just _relax_ …"

Eddie took the plastic knife from her grasp, setting it down onto the table with a click as Lisa steeled herself in preparation. Already she was retreating into that nasty, calculating part of her brain with the check-list; somewhere cold and numb, the same as she did every time Eddie became amorous. She could break down later, preferably at a therapist's office or some place with trained professionals who did not practice the Murkoff style of psychiatry. Right now, she needed the mental space to keep her captor…satisfied.

His breathing was already ragged, and she quietly hoped that he still wasn't feeling the effects of his frenzy from earlier. His hands grasped her forearms, lifting them above her head to place her palms on the wall as she faced away from him, expression blanked and eyes glazed.

"Keep them there, I want to-" he was literally salivating, swallowing his next words, "I want to feel the rest of you."

His breath was still hot against her neck as he pawed at the puffy sleeves of her dress, pinching the fabric between his fingertips and squeezing her shoulders before his hands, as usual, wandered lower. They trailed down ribs and to the seam just below her waist, mumbling something about it 'fitting her so perfectly' before he slipped one large hand under her skirts, grasping the meat of her thigh and moving to the swell of her rear. He groaned aloud rather suddenly, seizing a handful of soft flesh and practically slavering. "You minx…Always playing the innocent, aren't you? No, you're just trying to tempt me, you naughty thing. You're not even wearing anything under your dress."

"Eddie, you never made me any more-" She was loathe to even say the word aloud to him. "Panties."

"You don't need them. I'm your husband. There should be nothing separating us." He slid his palm forward to the cleft between her legs, prying into the space when he found her thighs trying to close. "Or I could make you more for…special occasions. Something with lace, and ribbons, where I can untie you…Unwrap you, every night."

Lisa still stood facing the wall, her fingernails curling slightly against the plaster, moving her head to stare at the ceiling. As usual, Eddie mistook the gesture as her yielding, pressing his kisses to her bared throat, biting at the shallow expanse where he felt her blood pulsing.

"You want this, don't you? I know you like it when I make you feel this way. I know you do."

"Mm…"

His free hand slid to the nape of her neck, finding the tiny zipper and pulling it downward with that always surprisingly delicate touch, seeming to relish the noise as the teeth pulled apart, revealing more and more of her back. He seemed less than pleased with the mess of bandages she had tried to tape over the stab wound by her shoulder, placing his hand over it almost reverently and tsk-tsking before turning his attentions to the curve of her spine, murmuring to himself as he leaned down to press a line of kisses downward.

His other hand was already busy, deftly positioning a finger to the cleft between her legs and slowly rubbing back and forth, eventually curling the digit to shallowly push into her. His normally taciturn little wife couldn't help but react, and he delighted every time she squirmed beneath his touch, hissing behind her teeth, or occasionally whimpered or moaned, making little noises she tried to hide from him. He would draw them out from her, one way or another…but he had promised to be gentle, this time.

"You're getting wet for me, darling," he murmured.

Lisa could only nod. It wasn't as though she could stop her reaction, any more than she could stop Eddie. Her body couldn't tell whether the fingers inside her belonged to her husband or…well, her other husband. It was only doing what it was supposed to do, naturally. It wasn't long before Eddie's movements were accompanied by soft wet sounds as he added another thick digit, causing her to gasp hard despite herself as she jerked slightly against him. Her body enjoyed it. Her body was desperate for any form of comfort, even as the frayed edges of her sanity unraveled and she retreated inside herself just a little further. Still she maintained her position spread-eagled against the wall. Doing otherwise would get her killed.

Eddie pulled at the top of her dress, parting the unzipped area and delving his other hand into the cage of fabric, around her delicate little ribs and back to one of the soft mounds of flesh he enjoyed so much. He rolled her breast up and down slowly within his palm, bloodshot eyes rolling back in his head in seeming ecstasy at the feel of them. Then his touch moved down, tickling her sternum and sliding to the curve of her rounded belly, holding her reverently as he rested his chin on her bony shoulder.

He finally pulled his hand out from under her skirts, rubbing his dampened fingers together before suddenly pushing forward. Her elbows collapsed and she gave a half-cry of surprise as she found herself pinned to the wall by his broad chest, his hand still holding her stomach as the other wrenched her skirts up around her waist before hastening to undo his belt. He could not even seem to wait for that much, pushing his hips forward so the bulging hardness at the front pressed dangerously between her rear. In only a few sharp motions he was free, yanking his own zipper down and pushing his briefs low enough so that his length popped free.

Lisa tensed all over, waiting for the brutal penetration that never came. Instead he actually chuckled, bending at the knees as he grasped himself, dragging his manhood teasingly against the bottom of her spine.

"You're so tiny, my dear. Too short. We can't have you accidentally straining yourself. No, no. Here, let's try…"

She was swept upward into his arms, quite used to it by now, but was only carried a few feet before being ceremoniously dumped onto the bed. She moved to lay down, but a touch on her back stilled her, grasping her hips as he urged her onto all fours, pulling her dress of the rest of the way and flinging it to the side.

"I really prefer to look at that lovely face when we make love…but I read that this is safer for pregnancy."

"Whatever is safer, Eddie," Lisa said, turning her head back to eye him warily.

"You're going to be such a good mother."

His hands moved to her hips as he climbed onto the bed behind her, the mattress creaking from his weight as he lifted to his knees, positioning himself between her legs. He gazed down at the expanse of her back, covered in bruises and bandages, all the way up to where her head twisted like a frightened animal's to stare up at him, eyes glittering in the dim light. He offered her a lopsided smile in reply, an attempt to soothe her before he grasped himself once more, fingers encircling the base of his cock as he aimed the swollen head towards his wife's opening. He pushed forward only a bit, dragging himself in circles around the tender wet flesh, parting her lips to glide the length of him back and forth against her, occasionally slipping forward into her just an inch or two. Her moisture coated him in such a marvelous way, pulling back just enough so he could look down at where they would be joined.

He continued that way for some time, toying with her, preparing her, long enough that Lisa finally shuddered and her posture relaxed. Taking that as his cue, Eddie guided himself back into place, pushing slowly forward until the head of him vanished inside her. His back hunched over her as he took her hips once more, and pulled her backward onto him, watching hungrily as he sheathed himself inside, gliding through like moistened silk until he was seated fully within.

He grunted as adjusted himself within her, allowing her a moment before he tried a few shallow thrusts. She was pleasantly compliant, so he tried a bit faster. That made her start panting, so he made sure that she was braced atop the bed before he set a more rapid pace. His back remained straight, still preferring to watch as he used her, pulling her onto him, admiring the way every motion sent a shockwave through her smaller body, traveling up until her bowed head jolted slightly. He may not have been able to see her face, but the easy downward motions of his thrusts and the feel of his hips hitting her plush backside was making him reconsider the position. Had his wife not been already with child, he might have truly been able to release himself on her this way.

"We'll do this again," he promised. "When we don't have to be so careful."

Lisa nodded mutely as he bent over her, releasing her hips and leaning down to brace his weight on his arms on both sides of her, caging her in as he shifted their motions to his own hips as he began driving himself into her once more. She moaned beneath him and he answered with his own, the lewd sound of their flesh clapping together almost echoing around the dreary little room. Her front was beginning to bow slowly from the onslaught, lowering her face and chest to rest on the mattress, muffling her little noises. He almost yanked her back into position so he could hear them, but was too caught in the moment to bother.

Again he found his arm encircling her middle protectively, placing his hand on the curve of her fertile belly. He was sweating from his efforts, breathing through an open mouth as he rasped and nearly snarled above her, pulling her flush against him as he felt a familiar thrum in his lower body. He lowered his head down next to hers, landing a sucking kiss to her unwounded shoulder.

"Tell me that you love me! Darling! Say that you love me!"

"I love you, Eddie! I-I love you!?"

A heavy hand landed on her back, shoving her face-first back into the mattress a little harder as the other held her still, pistoning his hips roughly forward against her. Only a few more movements and he was uttering those awful noises again and his body shuddered violently. She waited, and then he gasped and pulled himself free, his mangled face grinning dreamily as he collapsed dramatically down beside her. Lisa finally allowed herself to fall, curling atop the mattress as she felt nausea and sickness sweep through the new poison in her womb. She lay limp, eyes closed in a parody of coital bliss and hoping Eddie would be tired enough to sleep and leave her alone.

They lay there for some time, Eddie's breathing becoming deep and rhythmic as he drifted off. Lisa was busy coaxing herself out of catatonia, finally opening her eyes only to see that they had swapped positions on the bed and she was against the wall, trapped by his enormous slumbering body. She grumbled softly and waited, but didn't dare try to rouse him. Instead she carefully wriggled downward towards the foot of the bed to the narrowest part of him, his feet.

She moved to simply climb over him, flinging one leg awkwardly over his and pulling herself upright, calves straddled on either side of him as she tried to maintain balance, when Eddie suddenly shifted, eyelids peeling up to reveal red and blue beneath. Lisa froze as she watched his pupils expand and contract, trying to focus as they lifted to the figure looming over him at the foot of the bed.

Then Eddie screamed.

"NO! _NOOOO_!"

Lisa scrambled hurriedly to one side but pain blossomed suddenly in the side of her head and she went tumbling off the bed, landing hard on her back as she realized that Eddie had just punched her. Her head still felt like a bell that had just been rung, vision blurring as she tried to crawl away. Eddie was thrashing atop the sheets, kicking his feet free and bolting upright as Lisa found herself faced with a giant, angry, naked man.

"NEVER AGAIN! I TOLD YOU _NEVER_ AGAIN!"

He turned and smashed a fist into the file cabinet that served as one of their dressers, denting the metal and ripping open his knuckles.

"Filthy! FILTHY! I said NO! I _won't_!"

"Eddie! Eddie, please! I didn't mean to scare you! I'm sorry! Eddie, it's me! It's ME!" Lisa yelped, cowered against the nearby wall as he lifted the cabinet with both arms and sent it crashing to the ground, spilling papers everywhere.

Eddie clutched at his face, expression warped by bloody scars and anguish as he uttered an unnerving sobbing noise that chilled Lisa to her core. She had woken him by leaning over him in the bed, no doubt just like the many times he'd been woken up like that before, when he was younger…

"Eddie! Please, it's me! It was my fault! I scared you, I'm sorry! It was an accident!"

"I'm not…I'm NOT SCARED! Whore! Fucking whores!"

He turned and sent a nearby chair against the wall, wood splintering and clattering to the floor. Then he was punching the wall, injuring his bloody knuckles further as he cursed and wailed.

"I'M A GOOD MAN!" He snarled. "I didn't want to! I never wanted to! YOU! Filthy slut!"

He turned on Lisa, advancing a few menacing steps towards her, blood dripping from his split-open hand as he reached for her. She quailed at the look in his eyes, nails scrabbling uselessly at the wall behind her as she faced him.

"Eddie! Eddie, no! The _baby_!"

"…the baby…"

"Remember? The baby! See! Eddie, look!"

"Yes, the baby…"

She grabbed for his hand, lowering it from where it had been reaching for her throat, placing it onto her belly. Blood oozed from his knuckles, eerily warm as it dripped down through his fingers onto her skin. For a moment she was afraid Eddie was going to lose the battle going on inside his head, her life forfeit when her worth as a dead whore exceeded her worth as a vessel for his children. But his face blanked suddenly, brows lifting as he stroked her stomach.

Just like that, the aggression dropped from his posture, broad shoulders slumping passively. Lisa's nerves, however, remained electrified to the point of pain, adrenaline still surging in every part of her, limbs stiff and unresponsive as Eddie opened his arms and drew her back into another embrace, rocking her slowly back and forth and humming softly. She was shaking uncontrollably, even as Eddie reached to the side of their bed and grasped the wad of her dress, pulling it on over her head to help her get dressed, covering the smear of his blood on her belly.

Then he pulled on his briefs and pants, calmly buttoning up his shirt and vest as though nothing at all was amiss. He left Lisa standing there, bewildered and afraid, as he sat down at the little folding table and picked up his peanut butter sandwich.

"Darling, come sit. I know we got a little…distracted, but we can't forget our dinner!" He smiled.

She glanced about at the ruins of their makeshift home. Broken wood and furniture, spilled papers, and Eddie's blood was everywhere. Her head still throbbed with pain from that single blow, but she forced herself to move. Commanding her limbs to move again, she stiffly made her way to the table, lowering down onto the chair across from him and staring blankly at her sandwich.

"I'm not…I'm not sure if I'm hungry?"

"Don't be silly, angel. A mother-to-be has to eat."

She picked up the sandwich, forcing herself to take a bite. It was sticky and tasteless and her shellshocked body wanted nothing more than to throw it up again as she ate. Her groom gave her a pleased look before frowning down at her little sandwich, and generously taking the food from his plate and putting it onto hers.

"That's my darling," Eddie said. "You need this more than I. Not to worry. I'll take care of you."


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10**

* * *

"Good morning, sunshine! Sweetheart, it's time to wake up. I let you sleep in a bit since you didn't seem to be feeling well."

Lisa's eyes split open reluctantly, one of them thoroughly blackened and almost swollen shut where Eddie's fist had connected the other evening. Her head was throbbing, though she couldn't tell if it that was from the blow or another one of the nosebleed-causing migraines. She had spent an uneasy night laying next to him, jerking awake every time he moved or breathed out, and had only just begun to drift off after the sun had started to rise.

"…Sorry. Sorry, I'm awake," she mumbled, taking his hand as he helped pull her to sit up in bed. She felt her exhaustion keenly, staring glumly ahead into space as she watched him get dressed and putter about with his morning routine. Acid roiled in her stomach, but she couldn't find the energy to bother getting up. She coughed wetly and gagged the threatening taste of bile back down, but Eddie had already taken notice.

"Please, honey, not on the bed. Oh dear, you really must be feeling under the weather. My poor girl, you look so tired, did you not sleep well?" He pulled the sheets off her, adjusting her nightgown chastely around her form before gingerly lifting her up, carrying her off towards the bathroom.

"I slept fine. I'm fine. I can walk," Lisa muttered, though she made no attempt.

Eddie awkwardly nudged the door open with one foot and set her down in front of the toilet, and on cue she grasped the rim and threw up the remains of the peanut butter sandwiches and packaged onion rings that he had forced her to eat from the night before. And after finally spitting the last of the vile concoction into the bowl, she slumped forward, eyes dull as her cheek rested on the edge, not even caring how dirty it might be. She simply no longer cared.

She was starting to break down, she knew. Even the strongest mental barriers couldn't last against such an onslaught indefinitely. Eventually the physical and mental atrocities that assaulted her here at every turn would shatter her willpower. There would no place left in her head where she could retreat. She would make a mistake, and then in that one moment of weakness, Eddie would kill her. And maybe…

 _…maybe dying wouldn't be so bad. She was so tired…But…_

"Not yet," she mumbled, less than elegantly, into the toilet.

"What's that, darling?" Eddie frowned down at her, tsking lightly beneath his breath as he placed a hand to her forehead, gently prying her up and away from the seat. "Hm…you're a bit warm. Do you feel ill? Is it that nosebleed again? Have you been taking your pills? You have to be strong, sweetheart, for the baby…and for me. I can take a day off of work and stay with you? Would you like that, darling?"

Lisa blanched at the thought, her eye darting up at him. "No!"

His brow furrowed and his shoulders tensed, and she pulled herself up to sit, lifting a placating hand to his wrist.

"I meant to say…We can't have you missing work just because of the…the morning sickness. It's just something that happens, didn't you say that, Eddie?" His posture remained unhappy, and she quickly reached for something else that might charm him. "I'm just so new to all this, Eddie. I'm sure I'll be okay until you get home this afternoon…I mean, I can take care of things while my husband brings home the bacon."

She nearly sighed with relief when he drew his shoulders back and he smiled widely, grasping her hand and pulling her upright. She wobbled slightly as she stood, looking down at her stomach. It looked larger, even compared to a few days ago. Her dress was tight around the middle and she was standing with her feet apart. She literally looked a pregnant barefoot housewife…No doubt Eddie loved that.

"You really are a marvel. Our family is going to be so happy," he sighed, pressing his scarred lips to her clammy forehead. "Are you sure you'll be all right? I don't want you to push yourself too hard, will you promise me that?"

"I promise, Eddie. I'll be fine."

He swept her back up, using both arms to cradle her as he trundled back to their room.

"Oof, you're getting a little heavier than you used to be, darling," he said teasingly, glancing down at his wife who remained sullen and unresponsive. "…Sweetie, don't be that way, I'm just trying to cheer you up. How about I go and get us some real food after work, I'll head to the kitchens and…pick up a few things. Would that make you happy? I just want you to be happy."

"What?…Yes, I think that would make me feel better. Take your time at the kitchens," Lisa mumbled. The longer Eddie spent away from home, the safer she would be.

He returned her to their room and insisted upon helping her change into a new 'maternity dress' that he had made for her the day before. It was a drab orange thing clearly made from scraps of Mount Massive prison ward uniforms, cinched just below her bosom and hanging shapelessly over her like a circus tent. Eddie rubbed one hand across her bulging stomach fondly before leaning to kiss her cheek.

"I'll try to be back early tonight," he promised, before lumbering out into the hall. A few moments later, the door squeaked open and shut, and there was the faint click of the lock.

Lisa waited several minutes before making her rounds, trying every door and shaking every barred window. As always, they were locked tight. She sighed, taking another long rest on a half-broken chair. Of course they wouldn't be open. Why would anything have changed? Resigned to yet another dreary day of counting the hours until her mad groom returned, she picked up a scrap of cloth and half-heartedly meandered the halls, dusting the filthy shelves and sweeping up scraps of wood, remnants of the destroyed furniture left from Eddie's tantrums.

The silence was deafening, broken only by the occasional sputter of the halogen lamps above. Even though she was in no mood for singing, she let her voice creak out a tune, an off-key drone as she rummaged through upturned boxes and crates.

 _"I got my mind seeeet on you, I got my mind seeeet on you…but it's gonna take moneeeey! A whole lotta spending money…something something tiiiime, plenty of money. To do it, to do it, to-"_

"…Lisa?"

She paused abruptly, head jerking upright as she listened. For a moment she thought she'd heard a voice, tinny and echoing far away. It was likely her nerves, compounded by exhaustion. Jeremy Blaire was dead, and she and Eddie had killed him. Nobody else would be calling to her down here. She listened again, then hesitantly sang again.

 _"I got my mind seeet on you…Seeeet on you…"_

"Lisa!"

She threw down her dusting rag, shooting upright. She had heard it again, definitely, though she couldn't seem to pinpoint from where.

"Who's there! Is anyone there?" she shouted.

"Lisa, is that you? Hold on, I can hear you! I think I'm getting closer, just stay where you are!"

"Who is it?!" She hugged herself with both arms, head spinning with anxiety as she paced the length of the room. From up near the ceiling there came several metallic booming noises. Scrambling for her camera, she put her eye to the lens and flicked on the dark vision setting, searching the shadows at the end of the storage room. "Who the fuck is it!? Answer me…Please, answer me!"

There were several more thuds and clanking noises, then the outline of a face pressed itself to a grate set in the corner of the ceiling.

"Lisa? Oh my god, it really is you. Lisa, it's me, I got your email. It's Miles."

She sat down hard, legs simply giving way as she toppled down, barely catching herself with one hand as she landed on the dirty linoleum. She looked up at the grate, unsure if this was really happening or if the asylum's madness had finally gotten to her.

"Miles?…Miles Upshur?…"

"Yeah, it's me! Jesus Christ, Lisa, are you okay? I can't really see from here, where are you? And where am I? I've been crawling these damn ducts for hours but ah, turns out they don't put maps in in here."

She placed a hand to her bruised head, trying to get a hold of herself. "I'm…We're in a storage room in the vocational block. Miles, please, are the cops coming? Tell them they have to hurry. We need…we need extraction. We need help."

There was a long pause before his voice answered from the grate overhead. "It's just me."

She breathed out hard, heart sinking from its former elation. "But…"

"I heard a lady voice singing. And uh…I had a flashback to that time you sang karaoke back in college. Like, a Vietnam flashback."

"Miles, I normally like your jokes but… _please_."

"I got your email. I tried mailing you back but it said your account suddenly went inactive. I thought maybe you'd disabled it before getting out of there. I called, but there was no answer. Then I tried calling your house, but Waylon answered and said you'd never contacted him. Then I tried calling the asylum, and no answer there, so I came to check it out, and then-"

"Waylon! Is Waylon okay!? Oh god, are the boys okay?"

"I…think so? I only spoke to him for a moment. He sounded worried. I think a cartoon was playing in the background?"

She wiped at her eyes, lips cracking into the barest semblance of a half-smile. "Finding Nemo. Again. They've watched it a thousand times now, it's driving us all nuts."

"Okay, Lisa, do you have a ladder or anything? A screwdriver, maybe?"

She looked around, grasping the frame of a large shelf to help pull her top-heavy body upright with a grunt. "I don't think so. It's just a bunch of useless junk. Believe me, I've tried looking."

"Okay, stand clear. I hope it's just you down there, this is going to be noisy."

She heard him reposition himself up in the duct, then there were several brutally loud bangs as his foot slammed repeatedly into the grating on the front. The thin metal squeaked, then twisted and bent, and finally popped free, teetering by one screw. A moment later a figure squirmed out and dropped down awkwardly, landing hard on all fours before straightening. He started towards her, joining her in the dimly-lit part of the little storage space, cutting a familiar figure in his fur-lined leather coat and bloodstained jeans and boots. He started to smile, but it quickly faded when he got closer.

"What the fuck…Lisa, what the fuck happened? God your eye, your face, and…oh fuck, Lisa! You didn't mention you were pregnant in the email!"

"I'm not pregnant! At least I don't…I'm not sure," she bit her lip, looking down at the ugly dress draped over her bulge. "I can't be pregnant. This is just from a few days ago. I don't know what it is."

Miles was giving her a strange, doubtful look. "Lisa…"

"Miles, I'm serious. I have had two boys, and both of them took longer than five days to gestate."

"That's just five days?"

"Around there. Maybe a little longer. It's…time has been weird for me lately. Everything's been…" her voice cracked and she went silent.

"Lisa…how long have you been down here? How did you manage? There's patients running around everywhere…I got ambushed by some giant monster dude with half a face, then there was this crazy priest who turned the lights off on me and these two big naked guys and just…fuck me, that's just a few hours. I mean, you're a-" He paused, frowning, but said it anyway. "I mean, being a woman down here would just be…Fuck. Lisa, how?"

"One of them found me, decided to protect me…if you call it protecting. He's been keeping me down here. He thinks I'm his wife or…or something like it. Eddie Gluskin."

"Eddie Gluskin? Wait, why is that name familiar?" Miles paused, squinting at her blackened eye.

"I found his file a few days ago. Apparently he was all over the news when we were kids. They found him in some house in some suburb. He'd killed a bunch of women and then posed them in weird ways? I think some of the photos got leaked to the internet…"

"Holy fuck, that's him? He's here?" His jaw tightened suddenly. "With you? Lisa…did he…"

She looked away, gaze dulling. "…Yes."

He made a noise of shock, instinctively moving in to try and hug his old friend.

 _A warm pair of arms around her, loving her, suffocating her, smelling like blood and heat and HIM…_

"Don't _touch_ me!"

She almost pushed him, flailing one hand desperately in his direction as she stumbled backwards. Miles lowered his arms quickly, looking unsure of what to do, chagrin written on his features.

"Lisa?"

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Miles. It's not you, it's just…I can't. I'm just trying to keep it together, and I can't…It's all fucked up. Miles, it's so fucked up." Her hands balled into fists, fingernails digging into the meat of her palms as she lifted them to both sides of her head, gaze wide and hollow. "I'm not…I'm not okay."

"Lisa…" He reached out to her once more, then moved back before lowering his hands to his sides. "It's going to be okay. You'll be okay."

"I have to get out of here. He's going to kill me. He's getting worse and he's going to kill me, if this thing in me doesn't kill me first."

"Okay…Just try and keep it together for just a bit longer. We'll just need to double back and head back to the lobby…and maybe see if we can hit the Murkoff head offices on the way out, I bet there's a fucking treasure trove inside those hard drives," Miles muttered, looking back up to the grate he'd dropped down from. "Fuck knows I have enough weird shit on tape for the police but I think this goes way deeper than just a few patients breaking out. That priest guy was ranting about his true purpose and witnesses and something about a Walrider? That's the project you were working on, isn't it? With your Morpho-engine thingy."

"The Walrider project? Well, yes, but is this really the best time for one of your interviews?"

"No, but this priest…he kept saying that the Walrider was talking to him, that the Walrider needed a witness, like some sort of diety."

"But there isn't a THE Walrider. It's a project? It was…something to do with that new nano-bot technology. They said the pods were for a sterile environment, then they'd map out the patient's brain and-" She paused, lowering her head. "I never asked. Nobody ever asked. I thought it was just a bunch of science nonsense I couldn't understand, but I mean, if it could help the mentally ill, right? I just did computers. I just took care of basic system maintenance and repair, it was just glorified cyber-janitor tasks."

"Well, they told you the part about the nanites, at least, and putting them into their brains. They just left out all the nasty bits about what the Morphogenic Engine was doing inside those brains. Why they chose these incredibly particular brains."

"I didn't know. Miles, I swear I don't know. I just-" Her shoulders slumped. "I can't even say that it's because I wanted to help them. I just thought I wasn't supposed to ask about the doctors' business. I just fixed computers. I needed the job. It was just a job."

"Hey. Lisa, no, I didn't mean it like that. Sorry, I didn't mean to grill you. Reporter side just got carried away again, you know me. You did try to help, you tried to get the word out because you knew something bad was going down. Hey, you did something. That's more than anyone else has done against Murkoff. They're not going to get away with what they did to you, or to these people. You and me, Lisa, we're going to take this shit apart." He went to place a hand on her shoulder, thought better of it, and merely offered her a smile. "Hey. Fuck Murkoff."

She managed to almost smile back at him. "Yeah. Fuck Murkoff."

"So he's been keeping you here in this room?" Miles was rambling again, his camera roving around the squalor that Eddie had tried to make into a home. "Jesus, he did a number on this place. And you…Wait, fuck, I didn't mean for that to come out like that, sorry." He turned to aim the camera apologetically at his companion, who was busy shoving food and supplies into her flimsy emergency bag.

"…You're not wrong," she replied unhappily, gesturing to her bruised eye. "I guess I should be glad he was just hitting me and not stabbing me."

"That's the most messed-up silver lining I've heard in a while, Lisa."

"You're going to find a lot of that in this place."

"Do you know your way around once we get out of this ward?"

"They didn't take us on sightseeing tours of the asylum, Miles. I know the employee area and this hallway, and I've seen maps of the building, but it's one giant maze of a place. I think if we can double back to where you came in, maybe I can get my bearings again." She tied her pack securely around her shoulders, popped a duo of painkillers, and nodded to him. "All right, I'm ready. I'll try not to slow us down too much. Between the leg and the…you know."

"Whatever it is. And I'm not going to leave you behind in this shit hole, bad leg and magic demon baby or no."

She hobbled back into the storage room with the now-open duct, bracing her shoulder against one of the heavy metal shelves. Miles quickly joined her, and together they dug their heels against the ground and heaved. The shelf screeched as it moved inch by inch across the floor, until it finally came to rest just below the grate.

"All right, step up. I'm going to give you a boost…"

"Oh, ah…"

"What?"

"I know this is a really strange thing to say at this point but…I apologize in advance for flashing you."

Miles stared at her for a moment, then shook his head. "I'll leave that part out after I do your interviews later. All right, flashing aside, boost time, come on." He knit both hands together, planting both feet apart as he helped her clamber up the side of the heavy shelving unit, pushing up until she managed to get her top half into the duct. For a few moments she strained and struggled, the bulge of her middle blocking her way. She groaned aloud with effort, twisting to the side to finally wriggle through without scraping her stomach, pulling herself the rest of the way in.

"You all right, Lisa?"

"I'm fine! Just…let's both be very glad Eddie wasn't here to see that. Can you get up?"

"Let's just say this is not my first time crawling around air vents trying to get 'the scoop'."

Miles was far more agile in his attempt, climbing up the shelf and managing to pull himself in after her. He nodded, lowering his voice to a whisper. "All right. Cameras up, night vision on, voices down. Let's head left, we're going to go back the way I came in. After that…well, I guess we're winging it. Stay behind me…I'm not actually saying that to sound heroic, I just don't want to be awkward about the you flashing me thing."

"Miles!" she hissed.

"Okay, let's go."

She rolled onto all fours and crawled after him. It was cramped and cold and dark, but she was feeling more elated than she could ever remember feeling. Miles may not have rolled up with SWAT teams and cavalry, but he had found her all the same, and together they could make their way out of this madhouse, drive Murkoff out of business, and get back to Waylon and the boys and move somewhere where they could feel safe again.

They were going to make it out. She could feel it. They were _so close…_


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11**

* * *

"So he had you doing pretend housework? In that little hallway?"

"Sort of. I was mopping cement and dusting shelves of old junk that probably hasn't been touched since the 70s but…what could I do? Say no?"

Lisa meandered alongside him as he peered through his camera, zooming in on a dead security guard whose skull had been caved in on one side. She and Miles had abandoned the relative safety of the air ducts and had made an attempt to backtrack through the ward…and had promptly become lost in the maze, left to wander through ruined hallways and overgrown courtyards.

"…Would it be okay if I made an archaic joke about men and asking for directions?" Miles asked meekly.

"Apparently I'm not much better at it…I think we've been going in circles. Or squares. Whatever this place is made of."

Miles paused to briefly film a series of large bloody hand prints on the wall, smearing in one direction. Whoever had been being dragged had put up a fight, and there were scratches in the plaster, and what looked like a fingernail that had been torn loose. Lisa didn't want to look closely enough to confirm. They were leading to an ominous set of stairs and a yawning darkness further down.

"What about those stairs?" Miles asked brightly.

"You want to go _down_? Should we be going down?"

"Well it must go somewhere and we haven't found a way out up here. Hopefully it's better than the sewers I was wading through to get here. I have to tell you, the sewers beneath an insane asylum do not smell too great."

"I didn't want to say anything. I figured I probably didn't smell much better…nngh." She paused and inhaled sharply, placing a hand on her belly.

Miles reached out an arm to help steady her, brows knitting. "Lisa…"

"I'm fine. I'm fine. Just needed to catch my breath from all this walking. My leg isn't feeling too great and my…stomach hurts, I guess." she said quickly, glancing about before lifting her chin towards the darkness of the stairs. "You're right about us not getting anywhere here. Let's try down there."

They descended the stairs, and almost immediately regretted it. There was a rapidly worsening stench, far more powerful than Miles's sewer jeans or Lisa's unwashed body, the familiar reek of rotting flesh. There were bodies everywhere, but whatever this was must have been a doozy, likely a whole collection of them.

"Miles, maybe we should go back up. This can't be good."

"Wait, there's a light up ahead."

"There's a smell up ahead, too!"

"I don't hear anything. If they're already dead, maybe we can get around. Just be really quiet, and let's peek around-Oh fuck!" He rounded the corner and immediately staggered back as if struck, bending double and retching loudly.

Lisa ambled up to his side and stared, momentarily at a loss for words before mumbling, "So…Eddie actually was shaving people."

The scene was positively gruesome. It was a warped parody of childbirth, a bed covered in blood from the body of a man who had been hacked open between the thighs, his torso an infected purple mess of stitched-on flesh, nipples askew and one 'breast' starting to droop where it was becoming detached. A makeshift nurse was strung up next to him, held up by the pipes along the ceiling…and what at first glance seemed to be a baby…

She looked impassively to the half-rotted head of a man emerging from the pelvis of another man.

"It's…supposed to be me. He's practicing. On them."

Miles was busy filming, even as he turned his head and lifted an arm over his nose to try and stifle the overpowering stench. "Ghhh…Okay. You are being way too calm about this. I have seen some massively fucked up shit since arriving here but this is taking the entire goddamn cake. This is supposed to be you?"

"You don't know how obsessed he is about having children. Or I guess, the idea of having children. So he's been practicing. This must be his 'job' he goes to every day. Hunting them down and honing his techniques." She eyed the 'nurse' corpse balefully, its hand stiff with rigor mortis, tenderly wrapped around the hand of its charge in a pantomime of comfort. "Look at it. He's been dreaming of this. He wants everything to be perfect for when we have the 'baby'. This is what he fucking obsesses over, Miles, this is what he thinks it is. That piece of…" She trailed off, lifting a hand to her bruised face before balling it into a closed fist.

Miles gave her a look of concern. "You all right?"

"I know that he's sick. I saw what they were doing to him and what his files said. I know that he never stood a chance from the beginning and maybe somehow in a way this isn't even his fault but…Miles, look at this. Look at me. I hate him. I hate him so much." She glanced away, lips pursing. "I'm not sure I feel bad about hating him. I think I do? But he was hurting me, and kept hurting me, and enjoyed hurting me…and…and I don't even know why I'm telling you all this, and I think I'm going to need a lot of therapy. Real therapy. Not the-" Her voice cracked. "…No. We'd better change the subject."

"I don't really know what to say for this kind of thing. Just that I'm sorry and I'm going to get you out of here. I promised you."

"And I'm sorry for dragging you into it, dragging you down here with all this..."

"You said you had a story. Okay, I'll admit, I didn't expect it to go down quite like this, but you still have one hell of a story. And this is one that needs to be told." He tried to offer her a smile, then blinked and hesitantly reached toward her. "Hey, Lisa…your nose? It's bleeding."

She lifted her fingers to one nostril and looked as they came away red. "No…Shit! Shit! It's happening again, we need to move."

"Tell me what's wrong? What's happening?"

"I don't know what it is! I think it's this thing in me, if it's anything. But I was getting little nosebleeds all leading up to this week, and ever since then they've started getting worse and worse, and I end up passing out and this is an extremely not good place for fainting spells!"

"Ffffuck…Okay. Okay. We're moving, we're moving now, let's go."

They passed the gruesome birth installation, moving swiftly down the filthy lower halls. At least they weren't moving in circles anymore, but the darkness and the rapidly worsening ache in her head was of no comfort at all. And worse, there was the return of distant voices. Eddie's reign of terror must have lifted so far away from his territory, and the variants had made themselves at home on his outskirts.

This was confirmed when Miles went to open a door, and the two found themselves face to face with three inmates who were standing over the twitching body of a fourth. All heads in the room turned at once, and there was a beat of silence before the variants started shrieking and one of them lunged. Miles managed to throw a foot out, kicking him back and slamming the door, shoulder-checking a nearby metal rack to fall over in front of it and injuring himself in the process.

"OW! Fuck! Fuck me!" He grasped his now-dangling arm, fist clenching in pain even as he went to shove Lisa back towards the open hallways, the urgent banging of the variants trying to escape echoing down the corridor. "Go! Go go go go go!"

"I can't run! I can't RUN!" She answered, hobbling frantically on her bad leg and holding her middle, eyes wide and bloodshot as red still streamed from her nose.

"Shit! SHIT! Okay, go, go, in here!" He had her by the hand now, dragging her behind him as he ducked into a smaller hall and they dove into a ransacked staff office. Even with his clearly injured shoulder, Miles managed to shove one of the bookcases over it, blocking off the door just as the wailing of the rampaging lunatics sounded further down the block.

They were pinned down, as Upshur joined Lisa in her little hiding spot beneath the office desk. She was looking more unwell, a ghastly gray-pale and her breathing was labored, each hiss of exhalation bringing fresh blood out with it. Miles looked frantic, pulling off his coat and holding the sleeve of his flannel shirt beneath her nose, reaching for her emergency bag.

"Here. Here, take your pill, take the water. Come on, girl, you've been tough as hell, this is nothing!" He was speaking rapidly, his attempts at comfort going poorly as Lisa began trembling with the telltale signs of shock.

"This is fucked! God, Miles, it hurts!" She shuddered hard, nearly spasming as she reached up to hold out her camcorder. "Okay..nn… I need you to go on the rest of the way. Take my camera. Between us they should have plenty of footage and ammunition to work with. Take it with you and g-get out of here. Tell…Tell people what…happen…" Her voice was slurring, with a strange gurgle in her throat she hadn't heard before. "Way…Tell Waylon I lo…I _lohghh_ …"

Her eyes were starting to glaze and drift apart, focus leaving her all at once as she wrapped both arms around her painfully swollen belly, moaning.

"No! Lisa, no no no, come on. Don't do this. Don't do this now. I just found you." He grabbed her arm, trying to shoulder her upright before desperately moving to pull her onto his back, flinging her limbs around him. But Miles was no Eddie Gluskin, barely able to take a few steps with the body of the limp woman weighing him down. She was fading fast, eyes rolling back and gasping for air, blood streaming from her nose and the corner of her lips, sluggishly reaching up towards him even as her vision blurred and everything slowly became overtaken by that shrill static ringing in both ears.

"Waylon?…"

"Lisa!" He was shaking her, calling her name. He grasped his head, tearing at the sides of his hair helplessly and glancing between her and the door. Then she felt herself being dragged, and his fuzzy features stood over her in the dirty little office bathroom.

"Stay here. I'll be back. I'm going to lead them away, and come back for you. I'll come back. I fucking promise you, I'll be back!"

She could barely lift her head as he vanished from sight, and she dimly heard the crash of a door, followed by a roaring Miles getting further and further away. "OVER HERE! Yeah over here, you fucked-up fucks! Yeah! Come get me, you pieces of-"

Her neck gave way, and then her head hit the cracked tile of the floor, and she heard nothing.

Her first thought was that she must have died. She saw nothing but black and she was certainly not conscious. And yet, there was pain too. A far-away dull pain that seeped in from all sides of her. If she wasn't dead, perhaps she was having a dream. Maybe all of this was just a terrible dream.

Veins of green and grey crept over her vision and became suddenly aware that she was not alone. There was something there, with her, very close to her…

Something that wasn't really a voice that was inside her.

 **ALIVE.**

"Who…who is there?"

 **WE.**

"Where am I?"

 **PART OF US.**

"Stop it! Who are you! What are you!"

 **MANY.**

"What? Where are you from?"

 **BELOW.**

"What…what are you? Why are you doing this to me?"

 **TO BRING US.**

"Bring you where?"

 **WE WANT…TO _BE_.**

"…You're what's inside me, aren't you?"

 **YOU CARRY US.**

"Inside me…"

 **YES.**

"So…it's not Eddie's. It's…you?"

 **YES.**

"But you're hurting me. You're hurting these…people…"

There was a silence, almost confusion.

 **YES. ANGER.**

"Why?"

 **THE ANGER. IN HOPE.**

"I don't understand."

 **NO.**

"Please. Can't you stop? You have to stop this."

 **WE MUST.**

"No…"

 **MANIFEST.**

"No!"

She awoke with a horrible scraping gasping noise, body spasming and back arching. The black and green buzzing film that had overtaken her head faded, leaving nothing but a pounding ache that seemed to thud in time with her heart and the weight in her belly. It was no longer speaking to her, but she could swear that she feel it was watching her somehow, as she struggled to pull herself from the bloody floor. She managed to sit, coughing noisily as she grasped her middle with both arms.

Was it a demon? Some sort of science abomination? Was it even real? Had that been just another hallucination? Something her rapidly-deteriorating mind had concocted? Was it one of the signs of insanity that plagued this place?

She took a breath to calm her nerves and wheezed it out, the metallic sting of blood sharp in her nostrils as she wiped away flecks of dried red-brown. She couldn't have been out for very long. The blood was still too bright to be old. However long it had been, Miles was still gone, and she was still stuck in this place, and judging by the feeling in her gut, she was dying.

She managed to slowly wobble to her feet, grasping the side of the sink as she turned the faucet, splashing water onto her bloodstained face and swallowing more pain pills. Something seemed to shift ever so slightly in her insides, not quite a kick, barely a flutter of movement from something not really yet living. When she looked down, there was another smaller stain of blood on the fabric that had been between her legs.

What had it said? It was trying to manifest? But inside her?

"Fuck…"

She finished cleaning herself up as best she could, rummaging through the office and putting on a too-large windbreaker jacket over her stained maternity dress. Well, this all merely solidified the fact that she needed out of here. She needed a doctor, and fast.

Lisa padded softly over to the doorway, peeking out into the dimly lit halls. There was no sound save for the faint buzz of a dying lightbulb, and she lifted her voice to softly call "Miles?" several times. There was no answer, and she couldn't wait. Reluctantly, she slipped out into the walkway and started retracing her steps to continue her quest of trying to find a way out.

Every time she saw the outline of a body or a blood splatter, her mind surged in the beginnings of panic, expecting it to be Miles. But it was nearly as bad when she found absolutely no trace of him at all. There was no telling where he might have gone; perhaps caught, or lost again, or something worse. There was no way to know.

The only positive was that there seemed to be less patients. Most likely that the majority of them had been killed off in the days she had spent captive, though that meant that the ones who had survived were likely forced to be reckoned with, and she was more careful than ever to avoid their notice.

It may have been slow going, but there was still no small elation when she saw the first signs of familiarity, halls and rooms that she had been in before. And then, finally, a sign that pointed to the cafeterias, the lobby, and the exit.

The door to the cafeteria was hanging open, broken off its hinges, and half-stacked with debris, as if someone had tried to fortify it before being broken through, and the tables were littered with gore and dead bodies. But she didn't hear any signs of struggle inside. Perhaps the cafeteria's battleground days were over, as hungry inmates had emptied it and left to scavenge elsewhere.

Sure, the bodies looked as though large pieces of them had been removed and what skin was left looked like there were human teeth marks all over them..but at this point, that was nothing surprising.

She was quiet as a mouse as she made her way her way between the tables, bare feet padding softly, black with filth as she avoided broken glass and chunks of unidentifiable meat that were crawling with maggots. The main kitchen was in even worse shape, buzzing thick with flies as she skulked her way through, finding the doors back to the hallway locked tight as she turned to make her way through the pantry before she heard it…

Above the buzzing of flies, there was a higher-pitched metallic buzz.

"MEAT!"

The squeal of the buzzsaw revved loudly as he appeared in the doorway nearby, the man she had only glimpsed from afar so many days ago. He was a skeletal thing, disheveled and wild with a shaggy beard and tangled mane of hair, gangly and naked save for his blood-spattered underwear.

His feral gaze locked onto her even as she started to back away, lifting his buzzsaw.

"Meat! Beautiful, lonely flesh, all mine! You-" His ranting paused suddenly, buzzsaw screeching to a halt. "Wait. The _girl_! You're the girl!"

Lisa was already running, heart pounding and leg protesting as she hobbled at top speed through the ruined pantry rooms, with the scrawny man close on her heels.

"Wait! Wait!" he called to her, waving his saw, and looking more and more frustrated when it was clear she had no intentions of waiting on him.

"Girl! The GIRL! She's here!"

She tried to duck to one side, limping rapidly through another storage room before she spotted another open door, ignoring his screams for her to stop. She took a glance behind her, trying to see where he was coming from…and then slammed hard into something that stepped in front of her path. It felt like she'd run into a brick wall. With a grunt, she staggered and fell back, landing hard on her rear. Her eyes traveled up and up, expression slacking with shock as her gaze met the piercing red and blue peering back at her.

"Mr. Manera, would you kindly stop frightening my wife?"

She was vaguely aware of the buzzsaw guy slowing to a stop behind her, but he no longer mattered. With a rustling of shopping bags, the enormous man in the vest and bow-tie adjusted his cargo to one arm and reached out a gloved hand to her. Wordlessly, she took it, and was effortlessly hauled back up to her feet.

For a long moment, she and Eddie stared at one another. She was a bruised and battered mess with dirt and blood staining her jacket and dress, and he loomed over her with a look of both confusion, concern, and rapidly growing anger.

"Darling…What _are_ you doing here?"


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12**

* * *

"Answer me. What are you doing here?" Eddie's eyes narrowed, his voice a low and dangerous rumble. He was staring at her in a very unkind way, and she heard the leather of his gloves creak audibly as his fists tightened around the handle of his shopping bags. "I said answer me!"

Lisa stared at him dumbly, her mind racing. She needed to come up with something to charm him, or distract him, or anything that might ensure he wouldn't kill her on the spot for her impromptu escape attempt. But she was tired and stressed and her mental reserves had depleted, and her jaw merely gaped open and closed like a dying fish, saying nothing. Foolishly, she tried to take a step back.

He lunged forward, the bags dropping with a clatter as the buzzsaw wielding man flinched back warily, clearly not wishing to get involved as the groom lifted her by one arm like she was a doll, shaking her until her shoulder threatened to come loose in its socket. She dangled from his grasp, uttering a pained little cry that did nothing to dissuade his rage.

"I asked you to be good!" he snarled, "You said you would behave! Damn it, darling! Were you lying to me! Are you just another lying, rotten whore! How did you get out? Why are you trying to leave me?…Say something! I trusted you, you bitch!"

He threw her roughly to the ground and she crumpled into a heap, cradling her stomach in a parody of maternal protection. The very presence of the 'baby' might have quieted his tantrum before, but he showed no signs of calming now. He loomed over her with one fist raised, ready to strike. She looked up at him quickly, eyes wide. If she couldn't come up with a convincing lie, and she couldn't, she could at least try for some semblance of truth.

"The Walrider," she said quietly.

Manera stepped back at the very word, uttering a strange noise. Eddie's fist paused and hung there in the air. He stared down at her, expression inscrutable, and for a long time he was quiet.

Lisa used it a chance to further her explanation, leaving out the part where another man had come to rescue her through the air vents. The less anyone knew of Miles's presence, the safer he would be. "It was the Walrider. It came to me, it talked to me…It was the headaches. I started bleeding and then I passed out again, and I woke up somewhere else…" Again, technically that wasn't a lie, and Eddie wasn't interrupting her, so she continued. "So I went looking for help. Eddie, please. Please, I need help. I think I'm getting worse. I need a doctor. Please? Look at me…"

Eddie looked at her. His little wife looked so pale and exhausted, covered in blood and filth where she cowered on the floor in front of him. On any other occasion he would have enjoyed the sight, but her words had shaken him. How had she known about the Walrider? Unless…Had she truly heard it? Had it found her? He inhaled sharply when she pleadingly went to grasp his hand, her fingertips massaging soothingly over his knuckles as she begged for him to aid her. When she gestured, his gaze moved downward, to the stain of brown-red on the cloth of her dress where she had clearly bled from between her legs. He needed to make a decision…Perhaps her punishment could wait until later, when they were alone together, and he would teach her a harsh lesson for daring to go against his wishes.

"Eddie…Please?" she whispered. She was begging him. There was nothing left for her to do but beg. "Help me?"

He had waited so many long years just for her, and she had been such a joy until this very moment. And if his baby was indeed at risk, then he would have to act. He couldn't lose this one so soon, not after all his hard work in preparing her to bear his children.

But she would never forget her punishment when all this was done, after he was through with her…

He nodded slowly, the aggressive line of his shoulders lowering slowly. He adjusted his bow tie primly, smoothing back his hair before leaning down to gallantly help his wife up from the ground a second time, as though he had not just thrown her back down. "Oh darling…You're still learning, that's all. Even a good woman makes mistakes sometimes, and we'll correct it together," he said, ignoring the look on her face as she stared at him. "There, there. It's lucky you found me again, in so large and dangerous a place. But don't worry. I'll keep you safe. From _anything_ that wants to hurt you…"

Lisa nodded mutely. Somehow, she knew that even a hundred Eddies wouldn't be able to stand against the Walrider, if this thing inside her was even a fraction of…of whatever _it_ was.

Eddie smiled down at her lopsidedly. "Give me a kiss, darling, and we'll forget the whole thing for now."

She paused hesitantly, looking aside to Manera. The haggard bearded man was staring at the two in a way that made her distinctly uncomfortable. But when Eddie placed his fingers to the side of her jaw and directed her face up to him, she dared not disobey. The presence of the other man seemed to have raised his hackles somewhat, and the way he kissed her was nearly vicious. His mouth dominated her own, forcing her lips open as his tongue slipped between them, prodding and seeking, wrapping wetly around hers. His arms moved possessively around her once more, one arm lifting to cradle the back of her head, keeping her lips sealed to his. Every motion he made was a greedy display, his message clear.

' _Mine_ '.

She fought to keep herself in check, made herself kiss him back the way he liked. She dared not even glance at the other man, though she was fairly sure that she saw Manera palming his crotch awkwardly from the corner of one eye. She drew back only after Eddie did, trying to make herself very small as he draped his arm around her narrow shoulders and pulled her firmly against his side, turning rather casually to the cannibal.

"Mr. Manera, is the way to the main entry clear? I need to take my wife to the doctor," he said, smiling down to the clearly shellshocked woman tucked in against him. "I think she might need to be seen after her little bout of hysteria, and well, it's only natural for a father-to-be to be worried about the things most dear to him!"

Manera glanced between them. The prison break had been kind to him, had finally filled his belly and quieted his hunger after so many years of starvation, but even he was not ignorant to the dark presence that lurked in the halls and minds of the asylum. The woman was not only a pitiful thing of sinew and bone, but she reeked of something foul, like tainted meat. And now not only was there talk of the Walrider, but the Doctor as well.

He stroked his scraggly beard, swaying to and fro as he drifted in and out of thought. "Halls are clear," he said after a few moments. "Up until the main hall. The Doctor fixes anyone he finds there. Nobody comes from that way anymore…"

Lisa glanced between the two warily. "I didn't think there were still any doctors left…after the breakout?"

Eddie hushed her soothingly, rubbing his thumb across the delicate bone of her collar. "Oh no, darling. I'd never take you to one of those doctors. They were monsters. They would hurt you, hurt our babies, put impure thoughts into your head that a woman should never have. They would…No. No, not one of those doctors. We have our own doctor now, one of us."

"Not really one of us," Manera muttered, still swaying on his bony legs.

"Thank you, Frank, but he's the only doctor left in this place. And my wife needs to see a doctor. Come along, dear. Oh! Nearly forgot our shopping, hmm!" He leaned down to pick up the forgotten bags of provisions. "That's it, darling. We'll take you to your appointment, the doctor will make sure the baby's fine, and then once you're feeling a little better, you can cook us both a nice dinner back home…" He glanced about scandalously, before leaning down to whisper to her, the tip of his dry tongue against the top of her ear. "And then you can apologize, darling. For what you did. You can show me you still love me…Come along."

Her eyes darted towards the doors, then back to the hallway she'd come from, and she even gave Frank a pleading glance, but he merely offered her a yellow and red stained smile. From the sounds of it, the doctors and scientists at Mount Massive had been routed, evacuated or hunted down days ago. And from Eddie's words, she surmised that this new doctor was 'one of them', as in another lunatic patient swept up in the madness that plagued this hellhole. She began shaking her head frantically, trying to dig her heels into the filthy linoleum. "Eddie! Eddie, no, I need a doctor. I need a _real_ doctor. I'm _dying_."

He overpowered her with barely any effort, pulling her forward. "That's right, sweetheart, we're taking you to the doctor's."

"No, Eddie. A real doctor! We need to get out of this place!" She could feel the edges of her resolve cracking, and the panic that she'd been staving off for so long was threatening to seep in. She flailed, trying to push at him, her voice rising in desperation. "You can come with me. I'll take you with me. We can both get help. I'll still love you, Eddie. We can leave, right now! Together! Help! _Help me_!"

"Aww!" Manera cooed from behind them, clearly touched by the scene.

"Darling, stop that. I said stop it!" Rolling his eyes, he shuffled the grocery bags up one arm as he snatched her up into the other, holding her like a naughty child against his chest and clamping her into place. It was very lucky that he was such a patient man, and able to deal with a woman's hysterics so gracefully. "I am trying to be a good husband to you, but you have been testing my limits today! Perhaps the doctor can prescribe you something for your little fits. Don't you want to get better, darling?"

She was crushed against his chest, aiming a weak kick against his side and was rewarded with a painful squeeze of her leg in reply. She couldn't hope to fight him, and she still couldn't run, and no words of reason could hope to even begin to penetrate the delusions that had nested so deeply in that thick skull of his. She was fucked.

Manera lead them to the edge of the main hallway, muttering animatedly about barbecue. He vanished ahead for a moment, but then returned helpfully with an archaic wheelchair, rattling back towards them. He left it in front of Gluskin, but didn't dare offer to help as the much larger man started strapping the woman into it. He may not have always been the most observant of men, but even Manera knew not to touch what was Edward's. He'd seen what happened to those who tried.

Lisa barely put up a struggle as Eddie tightened the clamps around her arms and legs. She pulled feebly at the restraints, then looked up at him with a strange expression of betrayal. He merely shook his head down at her, tenderly running his palm against the curve of her swollen stomach, leaning to kiss the top of her head. "I know you're emotional right now, but afterward, you're going to see that this is for your own good. Just try to be patient, darling…as I am trying to be patient with you. Thanks for your help, Frank. Maybe we'll invite you over for dinner one of these days so you can see the children."

Manera brightened at the mention of dinner, and Eddie left him behind as he started ranting about different brands of hot sauce.

* * *

Lisa was silent as Eddie rolled her through the hallways, lights sputtering and flickering overhead, the main offices quiet save for the hum of fluorescence and the squeak of her wheels. She recognized the area they were in now, the main building's admin, and her heart leapt into her throat when she saw the comforting red glow of the exit signs pointing in the direction they were going. Eddie hummed to her gently as he pushed her onward, past the rotting bodies of both guards and patients and piles of brown and black gore that caught in the wheelchair's grooves and squished sickeningly beneath Eddie's boots.

Up ahead was the asylum's main entrance and office block, and at its very front…there was the grand doorway, yawning open. Night was just beginning to fall, and there were still traces of red and yellow in the sky, just starting to shift into the purple and blue of true evening. The first crickets were starting to sing, and a pleasant breeze fluttered inward, disturbing the scattered papers strewn about the floor. Lisa's eyes remained transfixed on it, leaning towards it as tears leaked from the corner of her bloodshot eyes. "Eddie…please?"

Eddie wheeled her right past it, still humming as he ignored her completely, taking her across into the next series of hallways. The smell of death and decay was even stronger there, searing her nostrils and clogging her throat when she tried to breathe in through her mouth. Eddie seemed unaffected, even when he walked past the mutilated body of a still-living man strapped to a medical stretcher, missing his limbs and his flesh peeled like an orange. They passed other room, and she could hear moaning and gurgling and soft cries for help. She pulled a little harder at her restraints.

Both of them paused when there was a crackle from up above, and a security camera swiveled towards them, the intercom next to it buzzing to life.

"Well, well, well…Now this is a surprise." The voice on the intercom was rough and full of static, but Lisa could swear that she had heard it somewhere before…Nothing that she could place, but it was somehow vaguely familiar. The camera swiveled downward, clearly aimed at her now. "Oh, and a pleasant surprise at that."

Eddie seemed to be maintaining his jovial air for now. "I'm here to make an appointment for my wife. Just to check up on the baby and maybe get her a little something to calm her down. The poor dear is under so much stress, she thinks she's been seeing things."

Lisa made sure he wasn't looking at her, mouthing a silent 'Help me' up to the camera.

"Well, buddy, you've come to the right place. Stress, huh? Well, who doesn't get a little stressed during these trying times, right? Tell you what, why don't you take a seat right there…Oh, I see she's already seated. Well, just wait for me right there and I'll be down in just a minute. Let me just…finish up with another patient." The self-proclaimed doctor uttered a gravelly chuckle into the microphone, and Lisa could have sworn there was the faint sound of moaning before it abruptly cut off.

Eddie obediently took a seat in a plastic waiting room chair nearby, pulling the wheelchair up next to him and continued to soothingly rub up and down her arm. Lisa decided to make another attempt at cajoling him. She licked her chapped lips, trying to lean towards him. "Eddie…Eddie, I'm frightened. This place scares me."

Almost as if on cue, there was the sound of raucous screaming from somewhere further down the clinic halls, and Eddie's forehead wrinkled in clear doubt. She seized upon it while she could, lowering her voice to an urgent whisper. "Did you hear that? Eddie, I think we should leave. I'm very scared! What if this makes my stress worse? Maybe we should leave?"

The madman seemed genuinely conflicted, but her opportunity to leave this clearly dangerous place was ruined when one of the doors suddenly swung open. The man that walked in was just as warped and depraved-looking as the rest of them, perhaps even more so. He was withered and bony, patches of his skin peeled or missing and wearing patched-together sheets as a makeshift apron, stained brown with old blood. What remained of his hair was patchy and gray, and he wore the remains of a doctor's surgery mask and magnifying head-lenses.

He strode forward, his attentions clearly on the woman in the wheelchair, but he leered a smile under his mask and turned to Eddie instead. "Hey, always exciting to have some of our local celebrities show up in my humble little clinic. The famous Mr. Eddie Gluskin, heartthrob to ladies everywhere," he chuckled, the vague insult sailing right over Eddie's head as the latter man smiled and nodded. "And you…" he turned to Lisa. "You must be…"

"Lisa Park," she answered automatically, still trying to search for the reason why she knew that voice.

"Lisa Gluskin," Eddie corrected her with a dangerous frown. "My wife."

"Oh! Well, Mr. Gluskin, I can assure you that your wife's care is only in the most capable of hands. Not like the other doctors around here, isn't that right, buddy? I've always through the Hippocratic Oath was really more of a series of guidelines than actual rules, and what are rules for, really? The Murkoff medical team had vision, I'll give them that, but where are they now? Couldn't stand a bit of heat, so they cut and run. Well, some of them ran, after the cutting part. But me, buddy? I'm still here for you. Here for you and your lovely wife."

"Thank you, Dr. Trager. We'd like to make an appointm-"

"Trager?" Lisa echoed suddenly. "Mr. Trager?"

For a moment there was an awkward silence as the three of them stared at one another. Lisa stared dumbfounded at the mangled figure of the former executive, Eddie was glaring between the two of them with narrowed eyes, and Trager tensed slightly as he turned a wary gaze towards Gluskin.

"Darling, do you _know_ this man?" Eddie asked, a sharp and accusatory edge to his tone. "From somewhere?"

In truth, Lisa barely knew him at all. She'd heard his voice in recordings and meetings, had seen his name bandied about in e-mails, and perhaps months and months ago she'd even seem him in person once or twice, back when he wore a proper suit, kept his gray hair back in a ponytail, and still had most of his skin. She tried to keep her tone even when she answered, "I don't think we've ever met in person, but I've heard of him before. In business e-mails and whatnot. It's…very nice to finally make your acquaintance, Mr…Dr. Trager."

Eddie relaxed somewhat as she kept her manners formal, and Trager smiled once more beneath his mask. He placed a mutilated hand to his bony chest. "Oh! I can't tell you how nice it is to finally meet you as well…Mrs. Gluskin. Your husband says you need a check-up for your nerves and for that little bun in the oven, is it? Well, why don't we just take you into the next room-"

The doctor made a move to grasp her wheelchair, but Eddie stood up abruptly, towering over him and stilling his hand. "I'll take her."

Lisa bit her lip. Trying anything here was a dangerous gamble, and losing Eddie's physical protection for a chance to try and bargain with this Murkoff executive-turned-surgeon might have been suicide. But she was already slowly dying, and a deal with this devil might be her only chance out. She looked up at Gluskin, angling her eyebrows up and putting on her best pleading expression once more. "I'm a little scared, Eddie, but…I think it's best I talk to the doctor. So I can get better?"

"I'll go in with you," he replied. "I'll keep you safe. He can talk with both of us there, a wife should hold no secrets from her husband."

Her mind fizzled and sputtered as it raced once more, and she pulled the only trump card she could think of. "But Eddie!…I…er…I don't want you to find out if it's a boy or a girl! I want it to be a surprise." It sounded lame when she said it like that, but Dr. Trager watched her attempts to manipulate her husband with a keen eye, chuckling in a rather pleased manner when it caused Gluskin to hesitate. Lisa continued in a softer tone, "I was going to make it a big surprise for you. Wouldn't that be so much more personal for us both, if I got to tell you?"

"Mm-" Eddie frowned. Her words had unknowingly played right into one of his most treasured fantasies. His pregnant wife, holding her fertile belly as she told him the sex of their baby. She would be holding a balloon and a toy, blue and a teddy bear for a boy, pink and a doll for a girl. And it would make him happy. The happiest father with the happiest children. "But if you get scared…" he said.

"Why don't you wait right outside the door? That way you can check up on me?" she said a little loudly, and her glance angled towards Trager suddenly. "That way…I can call for you?"

Eddie finally relented, nodding slowly. "All right. But just next door. And if you need me…"

"I'll call, I promise."

He relinquished the handles of her wheelchair, and Lisa sat placidly as Trager offered him a smile and took control, starting to wheel her off. "You made the right choice, buddy. Feel free to peruse some magazines. I think we still have some pages of Lad's Life around here somewhere while I perform this little check-up. Don't worry, I'll take my utmost care and time with this one…I think your wife and I have a lot to talk about."

Eddie watched as the wheelchair creaked slowly into the next room, and the door closed behind them.


End file.
